At the Edmonton Public Library the other day, I stumbled across a book on Alberta place-names. Toponymy and the naming of the landscape is something I'm very interested in, and I ended up flipping through both volumes in hot pursuit of where the town Sangudo got its name. You see, this puzzles me every time we drive through it on the way to go fishing, because to me it sounds vaguely Portuguese, and I wasn't aware of Portuguese settlements in Alberta... but it turns out that it's an invented word made up of initials of some first (non-Portuguese) settlers to the area. Yes. But I digress, because what I really want to discuss here is the loss of indigenous-language names across this provice.
I have always wanted to know what places were really called here. I wouldn't hesitate to say that most towns and cities have grown up around sites that have been settled for thousands of years by Aboriginal groups. Settlers were drawn to these natural areas via the fur trade or because they were natural places to settle for resources -- by waterways, by natural formations, sheltered places.
And now, so much has been forgotten. Many names have been translated awkwardly by Anglos, or erased and renamed something prosaic and unrelated.
The Sturgeon River is a translation of the Cree names or namao, depending on the dialect; Namao also obviously gets its name from the same source. Smoky Lake is a translation of the same in Cree, kaskapatau sakahigan. Thunder Lake was named for the sound the ice made in the spring when it was breaking up. Sounding Lake is called Nipimahitikwek in Cree or Oghtakway in Blackfoot, because the sounds of buffalo rumbling and racing can be heard emanating from the earth near the waters. Red Deer is Waskasoo in Cree, a name that is still attached to a park on the outskirts of the city. As for prosaic erasures, Whitecourt’s name is really Sakdewah, ‘place where rivers meet’, and the Pembina River’s name is Neepinmenan, which is Cree for ‘summer berry’. Pigeon Lake is really Woodpecker Lake in Cree, and that would be Hmi-hmoo sakahigan. Hmi-hmoo is such lovely onomatopoiea... I filled at least three pages in my notebook of these.
The most glaringly obvious one, of course, though, is Edmonton. This site on the banks of the North Saskatchewan has been a gathering place for many, many years -- graves on the Rossdale Flats can attest to that, if they haven't already been damaged. Why have we relegated its true name to a small downtown park, when this whole area, all the way out to the Astotin and Tawayik lakes at Elk Island, is Amiskwaciy-waskahigan, Beaver Hills House?
'Edmonton' is a district in London, England. How does this make any sense at all, displacing other un-related names when a name already exists, has existed for years and years?
Someone said to me recently in response to this: "But that would be to hard to pronounce!" To that I tried to explain that 'Edmonton' or 'Saint Albert' would pose difficulties as well for a speaker of Cree or Stoney, but they had to learn anyway! They were forced to... I believe that linguistic domination is a form of oppression. (But that's for another essay...)
I know that there are still other names that remain: Okotoks is from okatok, or ‘big rock’ in Blackfoot. Atikameg means ‘whitefish’ in Cree. Wabamun is 'mirror' in Cree (until a stupid train spilled oil in it, it was pretty clear...bah.) Etzikom (a coulee in Southern Alberta) comes from ‘valley’ in Blackfoot, Nakamun is Song of Praise (interestingly, there’s a bible camp there now) and Tawatinaw means a ‘river that divides the hills’. But how many people remember these, know this, understand the history? Who knows that 'Saskatchewan' comes from the Cree for 'fast-moving current'? It saddens me. It would only be respectful for everyone to learn what the names mean. (And for me, personally, it's another sign that I should learn to speak Cree, nêhiyawêwin...)
Now, I'm aware that we certainly we name things 'in commemoration of our history' -- schools and neighbourhoods in Edmonton and St. Albert have Cree names... for example, my elementary school is Keenooshayo, after a Cree chief of the region who signed a treaty at Lesser Slave Lake. On one hand, I think it signifies important recognition of the history of the place -- at least people are doing that! But on the other, it feels strange... I mean, I certainly don't want to speak for anyone who is a descendant of Keenooshayo... but I also wonder about about exploiting names, the ownership of names. Half of the neighbourhoods in Mill Woods have Cree names. Were Cree people in Edmonton consulted in this naming? Do any of these names historically relate to the land Mill Woods sits on? Or were they just labels added later? I want to know. Again, it's nice for municipal government & planners to acknowledge this heritage and history... but it also seems a little... sad. Because of the city really needs to acknowledge the people, now -- the Edmonton Aboriginal population is the second largest in Canada, and the fastest-growing. I really hope the new Edmonton Urban Aboriginal Accord Initiative is all it promises to be. It's encouraging, and I know that a number of the people involved are powerful & inspiring. And maybe if everyone else who lives here could learn & think a little bit more about the land they're living on & the people it was taken from, it would be a start.
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A particular area of Alberta that I would like to discover the true names for is Kananaskis. Certainly the region is named after a Cree chief who survived getting whacked on the head with an ax – after this he changed his name to kineahkis, ‘one who is grateful [to be alive]’. Some other indigenous names remain, such as Pekisko (‘small hills’ in Blackfoot), Nihahi (‘rocky’ in Stoney), Wasootch/Wasatch (‘hail’ or ‘beautiful’ in Cree), and Jumpingpound is a translation of the Blackfoot Ninapiskan or Stoney Tokojaptabwapta. There are names of explorers and trappers as well... But it drives me mad that most of the whole Kananaskis and Spray Ranges have the names of royalty, war personalities and battleships. Names of things that have absolutely no connection to this place in the Rocky Mountains.
I want to know what the Stoney names are for Mt. Indefatigable and Mt. Invincible are. I want to know why we refer to the Pétain Glacier not by its Stoney name Itarhye-na-kiska, ‘Go-up-in-the-mountains-country’. I am speaking as someone not of the culture, but I’d know feel a little perturbed if someone put my ancestors’ traditional hunting grounds on the map and named them after a treasonous head of state from WW2 Occupied (Vichy) France. I would also not be impressed by ‘the Royal Group’ over the border in B.C. being called after my oppressors. I want to research the true names, the true stories, what they are called by the Stoney, the Tsuu Tiina, the Siksika, the Cree. I want to know any of them would like to send a little compendium to the provincial government. Just to remind them of this, and let them know that the last time I was out hiking I certainly didn’t trip over any sunken warships stuck in the side of the mountain.
Post-modern theorists would likely contest and deride my desire to want to find the true names of things; but I don’t honestly think a rose by any other name would smell as sweet; I feel there is a tremendous amount of energy vested in names. They carry history and ancestry and certainly a connection to place in so many cultures. So many stories talk about the deities and forces giving names to the things they created, naming the land as they tread upon it; so many deities have spoken or dreamed the world into being... Just because the dominant industrial un-culture of this continent has no spiritual relationship with the land should not means that we can rename, forget. This over-naming is another symptom of disrespect and damage we do to place, to earth.
I just think that names possess a weight that anyone who still believes in the power of language will recognize – they reflect something human, primal, almost magical. And they will always be there, existing however faintly, even under layers of colonialism. Toponymy is also subject to tyranny; the way we have renamed these places is a kind of imperialism, another way of colonizing the land here. To recover these names would be an act of remembrance, resistance, and resilience.
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