Editor:
This letter is being typed on the unceded territory of the Shashalh nation: even though we call it Sechelt, because we didn’t know how to, or refused to, pronounce it properly when we arrived here back in the day.
As we attempt reconciliation with First Nations here, we protect “Mount Elphinstone” from logging; we draw mandalas in “Roberts Creek;” we walk the seawall in “Davis Bay,” breathing air so fresh it seems to have been born here; we hear jazz in “Pender Harbour.”
We understand and support the struggles of black people in the south as they pull down Confederate flags and remove the statues of southern generals, but as we go about our lives on this Coast, good-willed, happy, and open, we keep using the language of British imperialism; we keep repeating words that shouldn’t actually be said.
I learned only this week that Shashalh isn’t the name of the place. Being Shashalh is the linguistic equivalent of being a Torontonian, a Vancouverite, a Calgarian. The name of the place is actually Chateleech.
Who knew? And how many people don’t know how to, or refuse to, pronounce it properly. I hear Chatalek more often than not.
What did this place sound like 300 years ago. What names were spoken by the ocean, in ocean wind, around fires, with drumming?
What was Davis Bay called? Mount Elphinstone? Pender Harbour? Roberts Creek?
I suggest we consider erecting signs naming the places with their original sounds, printed in their original language, with phonetic spelling added so we can say them correctly and perhaps allow ourselves to get closer to the original music of the beautiful space.
Joe Dougherty, Roberts Creek
