Is station name cultural guilt?
Lebreton LRT stop to be called ‘Pimisi’
Pimisi is the suggested name for the new LeBreton light-rail station. Questions abound. What does it mean? How is it pronounced? What does it have to do with transit? Does it have any geographic link?
And has anyone consulted Mary Pitt?
Many have already pointed out the name LeBreton not only has historical roots (Capt. John, important pioneer, early 1800s) but everybody knows where it is.
When you look at the 13 names, in fact, Pimisi is the only one that lacks everyday currency and has no instant locator. It is not, in other words, even a place. It is the Algonquin word for eel. (Chicago may have its L, but Ottawa might well have its Eel.)
However, the proposal begins to make more sense when the background is understood, a point no doubt to be made at Wednesday’s transit commission meeting, where the names are up for approval.
The City of Ottawa, in fact, has been in discussion with the Algonquins of Ontario for at least three years about how LeBreton could be designed with an Algonquin theme, in terms of art, look and materials.
The Algonquins considered about 14 names, including Tanakiwin (homeland), Kichisippi (big river, variant spelling) and Makwa (bear) before reaching consensus on Pimisi at a meeting a few days ago.
The Algonquins — who live in nine small communities in Ontario and about the same number in Quebec — have a massive land claim over much of Ottawa and beyond. Victoria Island and the Chaudière Falls, very close to modern-day LeBreton Flats, are considered ancestral gathering places while the eel is thought of as sacred.
So, from their point of view, the name and location make sense.
One has to wonder whether there is “white-man” tokenism at play, however, and whether something as modern as urban transit — no doubt destined to be much cursed at — is the right vehicle to honour the pre-colonial past.
Think of it. We first do hideous things to our native peoples, send them to live in deplorable conditions, pollute and dam rivers so that the so-called American eel, the sacred one, is almost extinct, and now want an everyday reminder on our train system of the mess we’ve made of fellow humans and innocent creatures.
It might be guilt-shedding for some, not to mention fairly cheap and easy. (Many of the stations will have themes.)
It would likely mean more to Algonquins and everybody else if: 1) we settled the land claim, soon and satisfactorily; 2) we created a bona fide aboriginal centre on Victoria Island that would tell their whole story in a meaningful way; and 3) helped create native prosperity.
But that’s just me. Look, after all, at the magnificent Wabano Centre for Aboriginal Health on Montreal Road. Is that not so much more than a name?
Does much flow, after all, from naming a provincial park or a college based on Woodroffe Avenue for the Algonquins, or using their word for big river, Kitchissippi, for a municipal ward?
Still, Chief Kirby Whiteduck, an Algonquin from Golden Lake, says the name will serve as an important reminder about the precarious status of the eel population and drive home the point about a heritage food source.
As for the strangeness of the name, he responded:
“If I never heard the word LeBreton before and I saw it on paper, how would I pronounce it, you know?”
In supporting materials, the Algonquin point out that eels were once abundant on the Ottawa River system, accounting for as much as 50 per cent of the fish biomass.
Theirs is a different life cycle.
Born in the southern Sargasso Sea, they get carried north up the coast of North America by currents until they are big enough to enter freshwater rivers, like the St. Lawrence and Ottawa.
Because they travel immense distances inland, up and down stream, the destructive effect of dams and hydro turbines is thought to be a major reason for the population crash.
Whiteduck, in fact, said he visited an “eel ladder” at a hydro dam near Cornwall just this week.
The city, meanwhile, recognizes the importance of connecting names to specific locations. It says Ottawa currently has 51 “rapid” transit locations, 50 of them with geographic names.
Of the 294 stations in six major Canadian cities, 286 were found be have geographic names. (The report, oddly, seemed to be weakening the case for Pimisi, not making it.)
Not much turns on it, in the end — it just seems like an ill fit. No other ethnic or cultural group is singled out for special treatment in the naming. The bus token, possibly, is yet with us.