His grandfather was Chief Khahtsahlano of Senakw (aka Snauq or Sun'ahk) who had migrated from his home at Toktakanmic on the Squamish River to Chaythoos, and the man from whom he inherited his name.
One day soon after Supple Jack's burial at Chaythoos, city surveyors unexpectedly started chopping down his family's house while they were inside.
As August Jack recalls in his conversations with J. S. Matthews, the road around the park "did not touch my father's grave, so they left it there, but when it came we had to move away.
"[3] August Jack's family home and village were destroyed, and himself and the other members of the community were relocated to Snauq, the area under the southern end of the Burrard Bridge at the mouth of False Creek, while some people went to live on the reserve at Kitsilano Point.
At this Squamish village around 1900, in a ceremony attended by visiting people from Musqueam, Nanaimo, Sechelt, and Ustlawn (North Vancouver) his grandfather's name was given to him as his own.
He then moved to the Squamish reserve and married his wife Swanamia (Mary Anne) They had five children together: Emma, Celestine, Wilfred, Irene, and Louise.
[8] Chief August Jack Khahtsahlano was a Squamish medicine man, and was instrumental in the recording of his people's oral history and worked closely with many of Vancouver's first settlers.
[5] These records were designed to follow the work of Oliver Wells, with whom August Jack had also collaborated to record his personal stories and history in the book "Squamish Legends… The First People" (1966), published by Oliver Wells and Domanic Charlie, who operated a cafe in North Vancouver and displayed August Jack's carvings.