Written by NEIL GODBOUT
Citizen news editor
|
|
Thursday, 02 July 2009 |
Kelowna means "grizzly bear."
Penticton means "permanent place" or "a place to stay forever."
Nanaimo means "great people."
Prince Rupert was the first governor of the Hudson's Bay Company.
Prince George?
An update on Fort George and a nice tie-in with Prince George, the fourth son of King George V, at the time of the founding of the city in 1915.
But is that really a good name for our city?
Why don't we change it?
There's already discussion on both sides of the border to change the name of Juan de Fuca Strait and Puget Sound (two names for one body of water) to the Salish Sea, although the current names would stay in place to designate the American and Canadian sides of the Salish Sea.
Canada has a history of changing the names of communities to suit new times. In the Arctic, Iqaluit (meaning "place of fish") used to be Frobisher Bay and Tuktoyaktuk ("caribou crossing") was once Port Brabant. Nunavut is Canada's newest territory, carved out of the eastern portion of what is still called the Northwest Territories.
Closer to home, I attended high school in Winfield, north of Kelowna, but Winfield, along with Oyama and Okanagan Centre, are now just neighbourhoods of Lake Country.
They really should have come up with something better than Lake Country.
How about Chelootsoos, an aboriginal term for "long lake cut in the middle" to refer to Kalamalka and Wood Lakes?
We wouldn't have to go far to find a great name for Prince George.
With permission from the First Nation of the same name, why don't we call the city Lheidli T'enneh?
It means "people of the confluence."
It would be a respectful nod to the aboriginal history of our community and it would be somehow more Canadian since the name Canada itself is of native origin as are so many of our towns and cities.
Prince George doesn't necessarily need an aboriginal name.
The Fraser River is named after Simon Fraser and Quesnel is named after one of Fraser's fellow explorers, Jules Maurice Quesnel. McBride bears the name of former premier Richard McBride. Vanderhoof is Dutch for "of the farm."
The problem with Prince George is he never came here before he died in 1942.
Is it really fitting for a city to bear the name of someone with no link to the area?
The state of Alaska no longer recognizes Mount McKinley as the name of the highest peak in North America. President William McKinley was assassinated and the mountain was given his name, even though he never set foot in Alaska. The state and its residents call the mountain Denali, meaning "the high one." That's a good name since the peak is the jewel of Denali National Park.
Canada's highest mountain was also named after a man who never saw it. Mount Logan in the Yukon is named after Sir William Edmond Logan but it is a fitting honour for the man who
|
Lifestyle TV
in Prime Time
|
|
|
founded the Geological Survey of Canada. Unlike Mount McKinley, Mount Logan is a popular name with Yukon residents, geologists and mountaineers, as Jean Chretien found out to his dismay when he suggested renaming the peak Mount Trudeau after Pierre Trudeau died.
Prince George? It's time to call you something else.
But let's be careful about the new name.
According to the B.C. Geographical Names Information System, Coquitlam means either "little red salmon" or, I kid you not, "stinking of fish slime" since it was a site for butchering salmon.
On second thought, I wonder if there's an expression in the Carrier language for "stinking of pulp mill."
Might work.
Neil Godbout is The Citizen's news editor.
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
 |
|
Last Updated ( Thursday, 02 July 2009 )
|
Subscribe to this comment's feed
