In the city's centennial year, there's no better time to talk about history and the individuals who have made history with their accomplishments.
One of the best ways to keep history alive for present generations is to honour significant community members by naming public spaces after them. On this front, Prince George has a mixed record at present.
There are some great examples worth celebrating, particularly at UNBC, where there is the Charles Jago Northern Sport Centre, the Geoffrey Weller Library, the Dr. Donald Rix Northern Health Sciences Centre, the Bentley Centre and the David Douglas Botanical Gardens. Out in the city, there is the Bob Harkins branch of the Prince George Public Library, the Cpl. Darren Fitzpatrick Bravery Park, two high schools (D.P. Todd and John McInnis), a handful of elementary schools (Ron Brent, Giscome), Wilson Square and Masich Place Stadium. There are also plenty of street names, particularly in the Crescents and the Bowl, tied to historic local names, along with the one we're most proud of at the Citizen - Del Laverdure Way, the road off Massey Drive to Citizen Field and the BMX track (there's also a room at Rotary Hospice House named after our late publisher).
These are nice examples but the City of Prince George and School District 57 should follow UNBC's lead. As part of the centennial year, city council and the school board, with input from the Heritage Commission and the Prince George Sports Hall of Fame, should go on a naming spree of public buildings, schools, sports facilities and parks.
Surely there have been some great educators over the decades that deserve to have Prince George Secondary, College Heights Secondary, Duchess Park Secondary and Kelly Road Secondary renamed in their honour. Same goes for most of the city's elementary schools. Don Basserman was named a Freeman of the City last Friday. As a longtime educator, one of those schools should bear his name.
Another suggestion would be the library to name its Nechako branch in the Hart after John Backhouse, another Freeman, a past mayor and a past chief librarian.
The Seniors Activity Centre on Brunswick Street or Quinson Elementary could be named after Trelle Morrow, the architect of both of those buildings, as well as the Citizen main building and Sacred Heart Cathedral. Naming has to be done carefully, however, to avoid undoing previous historical recognition. Is Quinson school named after someone from Prince George's past? Quite possibly.
When he was Prime Minister, Jean Chretien ran into this very problem when Pierre Trudeau died. Chretien suggested that Canada's tallest mountain, Mt. Logan in the Yukon, be renamed after Trudeau. The problem is Mt. Logan is named after Sir William Edmond Logan, the founder of the Geological Survey of Canada.
Mt. Logan it remains and rightfully so.
For those who thought it was a bad idea to suggest renaming the entire city of Prince George as Lheidli or Lheidli T'enneh, that's fine. Here's a compromise: how about renaming each of the streets named after tree species between Patricia Boulevard, Queensway and 17th Avenue with Carrier names in recognition of the original aboriginal community that resided on that very site?
Names keep history alive, although that sentiment cuts both ways. As author James Loewen has pointed out, Nathan Bedford Forrest has more public spaces - schools, parks, streets and so on - named after him in the United States than any other American, even more than George Washington or Abraham Lincoln.
The problem is Forrest is best remembered for two things: as a Confederate general during the Civil War, the Federal troops who surrendered at Fort Pillow were massacred under his watch, and after the war, he helped found the Ku Klux Klan. With that in mind, a Florida high school named after Forrest changed its name last year to Westside High.
Thankfully, Prince George has many great names, past and present, that deserve to be remembered in more than just history books. Putting their name on prominent places in the community would be a great way of paying tribute, both to them and to our history.
