Queen Charlotte village to restore Haida moniker
Council votes unanimously to request community be renamed Daajing Giids
The Village of Queen Charlotte is a provincial government step away from being renamed, or rather having its name restored, to the ancestral Daajing Giids.
Village council voted unanimously Monday to write the province to request the name reversal. Pronounced “daw-jean geeds,” it translates as community hat.
“I feel this is the right thing to do,” said Kris Olsen, the village mayor. “The Haida have a stewardship law called tll yahda and it means to make things right and that's what our council is doing, we're making it right.
“There was really no rule book for us, but we followed appropriate Haida Gwaii protocols as well as local government rules we're legislated to follow.”
The Haida Gwaii village is the second municipality in B.C. to consider a name change after being approached by First Nations. Powell River, at the suggestion of the Tla'amin Nation, sought public input this spring about changing the name of that city.
Israel Powell was an Indian agent from 1872 to 1889 and was instrumental in forcibly sending children to residential schools, selling Lot 450 (land that included tiyskwat village), and banning potlatches language and other Indigenous customs.
“Some in the Tla'amin Nation feel slighted, or pain, when they hear the name Powell,” Dave Formosa, the city's mayor, told Postmedia News.
In April 2019 — declared by the UN as the International Year of Indigenous Languages — the Skidegate Haida immersion program and a group of elders submitted a letter to Queen Charlotte village council requesting the restoration of the ancient Haida name.
“We believe all Haida ancestral place names should be restored to our land and our seas,” the letter says, before quoting the late Solomon Wilson, a Haida elder: “Of course all places and waters on the islands had names.”
The letter has 70 signatories. “We believe that our precious Haida language will continue to flourish when the restoration and reclamation of our Haida language place names is gently and respectfully given back to the land and sea,” it concludes.
The village, at the south end of Graham Island, was named Queen Charlotte by white settlers in 1908. The islands themselves were once known as the Queen Charlottes, named in 1787 after the wife of King George III by a fur trader and captain of a ship called the Queen Charlotte. The archipelago itself reverted to being called Haida Gwaii in 2010.
Reverting to original Indigenous place names might be gathering steam across the province.
The former Belcarra Regional Park, a one-time winter camping area for the Tsleil-Waututh, is now named in their language, təmtəmíxwtən (tum-tum-ee-hwtun, which means “the biggest place for all the people”), for example.
School District 50 on Haida Gwaii has changed the name of the high school to Gidgalang Kuuyas Naay. Officials in Powell River and
Daajing Giids have conferred, and Olsen on Haida Gwaii thinks other communities might find the idea appealing. We live in a big country after all, and everywhere First Nations lived, there were names attached.
“I can see other communities absolutely looking at this as a viable option for their community, especially when it comes to spelling because a lot of communities already have First Nations names that can be corrected to spell them appropriately,” Olsen said.
He gave no examples but Coquitlam, for instance, could be spelled Kwikwetlem in honour of the original Central Salish Coast people who resided there, and Kamloops could be Tk'emlúps.
“It would truly be an act of reconciliation and recognition,” Olsen said.