The Name Game along the Saint John

 

There is a drive to rename the Saint John River in New Brunswick “The Wolostoq,” on the grounds that this is the traditional Indian name. Band spokespeople say "It is the obligation of the province to do so," and not doing so is an “assault.”

I like Indian place names—we all do. We already have a lot of them in Canada. Beginning with “Canada.” Or “Ottawa,” “Toronto,” “Quebec,” “Ontario,” “Manitoba,” “Winnipeg,” Saskatchewan,” ”Nunavut,” “Yukon” “Miramichi” … or my home town of Gananoque. Indian names are already well-represented. Shouldn’t we also recognize names from other groups of Canadians, and other periods in our history? The name “Saint John” was given by Samuel de Champlain. It is an artifact of our French-Canadian heritage. 

There is a total of 17,000 registered and recognized members of First Nations in New Brunswick. There are 200,000 of French ancestry. Why are they and  their culture worth less than the First Nations? And the First Nations, for that matter, are of three different linguistic groups. Only one of them would call the river “Wolostoq.” And, being nomadic, all historically passed along the river. Why should we give the river the name used by the Maliseet, say, instead of the Micmac name?

And, of course, any renaming costs money, and does nobody any material good. So there’s that.

You’d think the people of New Brunswick, and the native people of New Brunswick in particular, would have more pressing problems.