Re: “Mount Doug no more, marchers proclaim,” May 23.
As a professionally trained geographer, and editorial board member of a leading cartography journal, I strongly support the effort by local First Nations to reclaim the original indigenous name of Pkols for what the settler society has come to know as Mount Douglas.
Referring to local landmarks by their long-established indigenous names is a sign of respect for the history of the region and the peoples who have inhabited this land for millennia. Moreover, given that the provincial policy for geographical naming clearly states that “if a well-established local name is determined to exist, a new name will not be approved,” this raises the question of how the name Mount Douglas was approved in the first place, since a “well-established local name” already existed long before Douglas and other European settlers arrived on the shores of this great island.
Reuben Rose-Redwood,
Editorial board member, Cartographica
Saanich
