tooboocoo

In response to the original question - no, what's wrong with "British Columbia"?

caretaker

How many white people don't even know what the native name of their own town means, even when it's been in use by colonists for centuries? I had to look Toronto and Ottawa up, even though I probably learned it in school. Most names that I know were used by the inhabitants to describe water features, since those were constant and so the whole country is dotted with them. Ditto the names of many American states and cities. If it wasn't for an endless loop of historical vignettes on television many wouldn't know that Canada comes from Kanata (the village or community). In some cases using a different name doesn't come too hard, for example we're used to calling the Queen Charlotte Islands Haida Gwaii now, but it took an international ecological campaign over the forests and a movement to protect the remains of the settlements and totems on the islands before it happened. I think maybe 20 or 30 years ago there was something in the news about a woman whose family was the last one from the settlement where downtown Vancouver stands. She tried to sue for a reserve for her band, even though they'd been pushed out and assimilated into other bands or lost to the city before she was even born. It didn't work but did draw attention to it, and Chief Dan George helped with that. Iirc he said something about how it wasn't that long ago his people were hunting deer in Stanley Park, and he was right, it wasn't that long ago. Maybe they could re-name Stanley Park, but I think British Columbia as a province name is there to stay.

beckiwoo

Found it:

Former Lancastrian

Food for thought

Though today the majority of Canadians are white, the land that is now “Canada” was first occupied for thousands of years by the aboriginal peoples of North America. These people had lived on the northern half of the North American continent ever since homo sapiens first arrived from Asia, most likely via the Bering Land Bridge,around 21,000 B.C.

https://thecanadaguide.com/history/early-history/

The ancestors of Aboriginal peoples are believed to have migrated from Asia many thousands of years ago.

http://www.canada.com/pdf/discover_canada_eng_37.pdf

scilly

......... and there are at least 27 First Nations in BC alone, each with their own languages and dialects.

Who chooses which??

Certainly should not be the whites, or even the Blacks, who all came much later. But which of the 27 arrived first?

It's a discussion that could go on literally for centuries, not just years.

caretaker

The Tyee article linked in your original post came out after weeks of news showing statues of famous people with connections to slavery, and others of characters with infamous pasts being pulled down following George Floyd's killing.
There was a call to change the name of British Columbia weeks before Floyd's killing, by a native artist named Lawrence Yuxweluptun, as an introduction to his politically-themed show in the Museum of Anthropology at UBC. Artists give a lot of thought to their Artist Statement that viewers are greeted with at the gallery, so the name thing is obviously important to him, but I take this more as a reminder to be aware of the land and it's history (and that much of it is unceded land and still going through the treaty process) than a clarion call to change the name.
https://vancouversun.com/news/staff-...l-yuxweluptun/

Paul_Shepherd

I think its starting to get way out of hand now,,, why change, apart from being an complete waste if money, where do we draw the line? do we change the name of every British name of a town and city in the world??,,,,personally I think its a ridiculous idea.

Oakvillian

that's a great example, certainly. Another - but switching between allegiance to two colonial powers, rather than showing any deference to first peoples - is Kitchener, ON, which was renamed from Berlin in 1916, so that the (largely German) residents could show their loyalty to the British Empire in the middle of the Great War. Kitchener apparently wasn't even in the running until shortly before the final poll. There had been a plebiscite of sorts to change the name, but to what wasn't decided until later. Losing options on the ballot included Kitchener, Brock, Adanac (Canada spelled backwards), Benton, Corona and Keowana. There was little interest, and a very poor turnout in the voting. 346 people voted for Kitchener

Of course, Kitchener is problematic in itself as a name. Horatio Herbert Kitchener (what a name!) was largely responsible for the rapid expansion of Roberts' use of concentration camps in the Second Boer War. There have been several (so far unsuccessful) attempts to raise the issue and get the town to change its name once again

BristolUK

Catchy name.

dave_j

There's nothing wrong with discussing the potential for name change... but if it's not stamped on pretty quickly it'll grow legs and become a movement.
Once this happens all manner of hangers-on and parasites become involved. There'll be interest groups formed, lobbying for this name or that name and most importantly politicking and fund raising.
In no time at all inertia will increase to the point where there never was a discussion about whether the name should change but only how soon, to what and most importantly 'how can it benefit me personally'.
It's a complete waste of time, effort and resources unless there's a wide groundswell driven need, but these trendy movements tend to be initiated from the top and it's the rest of us that pay for it.

dbd33

Kitchener, where I go to get the BMW serviced,, could reasonably change back to Berlin now. That would reflect cultural heritage of the place.

caretaker

Somehow University of Berlin-Waterloo doesn't sound right.

Lychee

But that is exactly what happened. Names of places home to thousands of years of human occupation, and complex, sophisticated civilizations and cultures were just erased and written over with new colonial names without consent. The people didn't disappear. Their culture didn't disappear. They are still here. It's a mindset that needs to be changed. The cultures in BC are thousands of years old, up to 10,000 years old in places. These place names existed for literally thousands of years. They still exist and are in use. BC is just a temporary blip on the map. It can certainly be written over just as disgracefully as the colonizers who wrote over the Indigenous place names.

Almost Canadian

Perhaps they could rename it. Then ancestors of others could ask for them to be replaced on the basis that their ancestors had been subjected to having the the shit out of them with sticks while they had to run a gauntlet, or seeing how long the visitor could last while keeping away from the fire we have lit after fixing their innards to a tree.

Engineer_abroad

but BC is now a thing. It is a province of Canada and needs a name, and no name for the province existed previous. If you were arguing for renaming cities and towns there is a case to make but not for the province itself.