topic:"Geography" found 2 records - Research Collections - Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies

Abstract: The first book to demonstrate how inadequately place names and visual emblems represent the presence of women, people of colour, and people living with disabilities, Canada’s Place Names and How to Change Them provides an illuminating overview of where these names came from and what they reflect. This book disentangles the distinct cultural, religious, and historical naming practices and visual emblems in Canada’s First Nations, provinces, territories, municipalities, and federal lands. Starting with a discussion of Indigenous place knowledge and naming practices from several Indigenous and Inuit groups spanning the country, it foregrounds the breadth of possible ways to name places. Lauren Beck then illustrates the naming practices introduced by Europeans and how they misunderstood, mis-rendered, and appropriated Indigenous place names, while scrutinizing the histories of Columbian names, missionary names, and the secular and commemorative names of the last two centuries. She studies key symbols and emblems such as maps, flags, and coats of arms as visual equivalents of place names to show whose identities powerfully inform Canada’s place nomenclature. This book also documents the policies and authorities that have traditionally governed the creation and modification of names and examines case studies of institutions and communities who have changed their names to demonstrate pathways to change.-- Provided by publisher.

Contents: Knowing in Place -- A Brief History of Settler-Colonial Naming Practices in Canada -- Gender and Canada’s Place Names -- Indigenous Names in a Settler-Colonial Context -- Marginalized Groups and Canada’s Place Names -- How to Discuss and Change Names.

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Subjects: Geography; Human Geography; Kootenay; History; British Columbia; Indigenous

Abstract: This compact book records a quest for understanding, to find the story behind the Snayackstx (Sinixt) First Nation. Known in the United States as the Arrow Lakes Indians of the Colville Confederated Tribes, the tribe lived along the upper Columbia River and its tributaries for thousands of years. In a story unique to First Nations in Canada, the Canadian federal government declared them “extinct” in 1956, eliminating with the stroke of a pen this tribe’s ability to legally access 80 per cent of their trans-boundary traditional territory. Part travelogue, part cultural history, the book details the culture, place names, practices, and landscape features of this lost tribe of British Columbia, through a contemporary lens that presents all readers with an opportunity to participate in reconciliation. -- From publisher

This material is presented as originally created; it may contain outdated cultural descriptions and potentially offensive content. Read more.