So, which is it: the St. John River or the Saint John River?
THE NATIONAL POST DECIDED TO INVESTIGATE THIS CONTENTIOUS ORTHOGRAPHIC ISSUE
“It ’s j ust one of those things over the years that’s changed back and forth,” the historian says with some amusement. The spelling, he thinks, can go “either way.”
The historian is Greg Marquis at the University of New Brunswick. The thing in question is one on which federal and provincial governments and even local residents can’t seem to agree, and haven’t for decades: Is the river that runs some 673 kilometres from Maine through Quebec and New Brunswick to the Bay of Fundy the “Saint John” or the “St. John”?
If l ast week’s Rolling Stone magazine’s cover story on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau offered few revelations about Canada’s head of government, it did manage to dredge up this l ong- s t anding Canadian controversy.
When the story appeared online the magazine took flak from disgruntled Canadians for several glaring mistakes — calling the Liberal Party the Liberty Party, f or example. Among the apparent errors: an anecdote about Trudeau eating ice cream with supporters on the shores of, as Rolling Stone had it, the St. John River. Residents of Saint John, N. B., bristle when their town’s name is misspelled with the abbreviation, and many — including the National Post — pointed out the mistake.
The magazine corrected its online copy from St. John to Saint John. However, the Post later corrected its own story about the piece from Saint John to St. John — perhaps unnecessarily, as it turned out. Amid the ortho- graphical mayhem, the Post decided to investigate.
What’s the official spelling of the river’s name? “That’s a good question,” said a man who answered the Post’s call to New Brunswick’s provincial tourism hotline. “I’m not sure myself.” After putting the call on hold, he reported back that two tourism department web pages offer different answers to the question — but, he said, his senior supervisor was totally sure it’s St. John.
According to the UNB’s Marquis, whether or not it’s official the river’s most common name is St. John. “Most — and this would be ar- cane — but most academic editors who would know the history of the region would go with St.,” he said.
“To be fair, the locals would not have a uniform way of spelling it,” Marquis added.
And sure, it’ s complicated. Whether St. or Saint John, it’s an English translation from Samuel de Champlain’s original French naming of the river in 1604 on Saint- Jean- Baptiste Day. Further complicating the Post’s search for the truth: The city of Saint John was, until the mid-20th century, itself called St. John.
Official maps from the early 20th century, held by Library and Archives Canada, alternate between the two spellings every few years. Some current government websites feature both spellings on a single page.
Natural Resources Canada, however, insists it’ s Saint John, and said so de- finitively in an email to the Post. That comes on the authority of the archives of the Geographical Names Board of Canada, which state the “Saint John River” name was adopted in 1938.
NRCan s pokeswoman Catherine Leroux provided original documents from the then- Canadian Permanent Committee on Geographical Names, proving the official spelled- out name was approved before the Second World War. But still, she referred any further questions back to the province.
“Over time, there have been a variety of spellings used for the Saint John River in publications, newspaper articles, maps and numerous other mediums,” said Johanne LeBlanc, a spokeswoman for the provincial government’s Tourism, Heritage and Culture department.
She confirmed the official name — Saint John — in an email, but also cited a 2011 government policy that states names made official with a particular spelling of Saint or St. should not be modified after the fact.
As for our own industry, until recently, The Canadian Press, which publishes a journalism style guide used by the Post and many other organizations, used the St. John spelling.
The guide’s most recent printed edition says that’s how to spell it. But on July 1, along with a few other changes ( like a decree that ‘ Indigenous’ would now be capitalized), CP updated the spelling to Saint John.
CP’s editor- in- chief, Stephen Meurice, told the Post the new style matches NRCan’s recommendation and that, besides, some locals had been lobbying CP to change it for some time. The change will be reflected in the next edition of the stylebook, he confirmed.
Our public broadcaster, by contrast, recommends spelling it St. John River. “In rare cases, geographical names are known by more than one spelling,” reads the CBC style guide. Official NRCan names are generally used, but when there’s a local preference and other official support — like usage by the provincial government — CBC adopts the conventional spelling.
Perhaps nobody loves the river more than the members of a group that “exists for ( its) appreciation and wise use,” The St. John River Society — note the abbreviated spelling. Executive director Molly Demma said the group, founded in 1992, also tries to emphasize the original Indigenous name of the river, Wolastoq. “That means the good and bountiful river,” she said. “And that has been the name of the river for millennia and continues to be actively used.”
Members of the Maliseet Indigenous community, who identify as Wolastoqiyik, recently asked the province to have the river’s name changed back to Wolastoq.
“All their reserves are located within that watershed, and I think it would be part of a nice gesture towards the Wolastoqiyik people,” said Marquis. Not all agree: a former chair in native studies at St. Thomas University in Fredericton told CBC in June she thinks the English spelling of Wolastoq could be misleading and cause mispronunciation, so the river’s name seems fated to be a perennial issue.
THAT HAS BEEN THE NAME OF THE RIVER FOR MILLENNIA.