A name change?

 Sure, the name Powell River may, for some people, evoke memories of a colonial past, but the name Juan de Fuca, too, conjures up memories of Spanish explores and of a colonial past. So does George Vancouver, who worked at the service of the colonial British. The name of our province too is tainted: what could be more colonial sounding than British Columbia? And what about America itself, named, as it is, after Amerigo Vespucci, the Italian explorer who worked for both the kings of Spain and Portugal. Does this mean that all of these names should be changed to bring them in line with today’s ways of thinking? Will changing these names really alter what has happened in the past? Changing these names may well make us forget the past, but would that be a good thing? Even if we grant that the world would have been a better place had these people never existed, isn’t it better to remember that they did in fact exist and that—through the act of remembering—we may avoid making the mistakes they supposedly have made? There is also this: that for a lot of people these names conjure up, not negative, but very positive things. An obvious example: America! Think of what that word has meant, and continues to mean, for millions. And a smaller, but for many an equally resonant name: Powell River—a name that has called to the town that bears that name so many people from all over the world looking for a better life. With due respect to those people who feel offended by this name, isn’t canceling the name a kind of disrespect for many many other people?

I am one of these other people: Powell River was, for quite a few years, my first home away from home. And by the way, I came to Powell River for a region of Italy called FRIULI, and—wouldn’t you know it?—FRIULI comes from the Latin Forum Julii, named after Julius Caesar, the Roman conqueror of that part of Italy that bears that name. For all I know Julius Caesar may have been a mean conqueror and colonizer, but he could have done a lot worse than leave behind a nifty name like FRIULI.