hear nisga'a toponyms

another groovy tip from Mark Monmonier's From Squaw Tit to Whorehouse Meadow:

In 2000, the Canadian province British Columbia and the Canadian government settled a land claim with the Nisga'a Nation, one of Canada's First Nations or native tribes. As wikipedia tells us:

As part of the settlement in the Nass River valley nearly 2,000 square kilometres of land was officially recognized as Nisga'a, and as well a 300,000 cubic decameter water reservation was created. The Bear Glacier Provincial Park was also created a result of this agreement. The land-claim's settlement was the first formal treaty between a First Nation and the Province of British Columbia in modern times.

(Here's more information on the treaty.)

Since the Nisga'as' new empowerment allowed them to change toponyms (back) to original or correct spellings (34 Nisga'a names were "adopted" as part of the treaty) some geniuses decided to create a severely interactive map of Nisga'a lands. The map is divided into upper and lower. Click on one of these and you'll be taken to a larger map (like the one above, of the lower lands), marking out the locations of the 34 new toponyms. Click on one of the red dots indicating the place names, and you'll be taken to a page of information about that place, including a sound clip of how to pronounce the name!

Now this is what I'm talkin' about when I say "multimedia"! Too often we use the web, in our lamentably imitable American way, for navel-gazing (a nice way of saying "psychic masturbation"). Why don't we use it more for real educational purposes? Why don't we use it to reach across distances and give information in forms that books and magazines and even classrooms can't give it? It's not like recording or producing sound is difficult or expensive anymore. Many props to the B.C. website that made this.

Comments

[Melissa Delorme]

Hey you guys are just so cool and I wanted to let you know that what you are doing for your people is just absolutley awesome! More power to the brothers and sisters of Nisga'a first nation....I only hope that future success and endeavors can set a precedent for other First Nation communities struggling toward Self -Government......