[NatureNS] on apostrophes in geographical names

From: "john belbin" <jbelbin@ns.sympatico.ca>
To: "Naturens" <naturens@chebucto.ns.ca>
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2006 11:16:15 -0300
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With my earlier post I did not mean to imply that cartographers have an
arbitrary ability to change the way names are portrayed - by far the
greatest proportion of names on any official map contain what is defined to
be the legal spelling of that location. Legal names are defined by the
Geographic Names Board of the province or territory and each regional board
has representation on the National Geographic Names board in Ottawa. I
believe it currently has about 27 members who carefully discuss the way
names are depicted to ensure that we are all on the same page and speaking
the same language and that potential usurpers, and even cartographers, are
subject to some controls.


Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations, through its Registry and
Information Management Services Division, operates the Province's
Geographical Names Program.(Hey, I used an apostrophe!) The Provincial
member of the Geographical Names Board of Canada, administers geographical
naming activities within the province. You can find it at:-




http://www.gov.ns.ca/snsmr/placenames/knowledge.asp



If you go to the national site from there, you can spend a happy few minutes
gaining vaguely useful trivial information such as the legal name of our
nearest major city across the Bay is Saint John, and Saint Jean, however
spelt and with or without the hyphen, has no legal standing!

As an aside on this matter, I remember many years ago I worked for the
Ontario Department of Mines (now Natural Resources) producing detailed
geological maps of the province. Often they were of areas that had had
little or no detailed mapping done on them before. The geologist in his
report would obviously want to refer to major land forms such as lakes, by
name and you had to ensure that the map name was both the same and correct.
Many locally notable features simply had no legal name at that time. In some
areas with a very small local population the only people who would venture a
name to a feature often did not agree and if they did it might be something
useless like Black Duck Pond or Big Trout Lake - names that had already been
used hundreds of time elsewhere in the province. The cartographer would trot
over to the Ontario Geographic Names Board and ask them to provide a name.
After a check of the records a name would usually be given that was taken
from the list of Canadian war dead, immortalizing one of those people who
had made the ultimate sacrifice. I have always thought that was a very
appropriate technique, but as I haven't worked in that province for 30 years
I have no idea if that process is still on-going.

I do believe that we are getting off topic, so perhaps I should drop any
further discussion

John Belbin - Kingston


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