next message in archive
no next message in thread
previous message in archive
previous message in thread
Index of Subjects
Index of Subjects 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
next message in archive
no next message in thread
previous message in archive
previous message in thread
Index of Subjects