[ISL] On the potential renaming of Port-la-Joye-Fort Amherst by Parks Canada
Michael Conor McCarthy, writing for The Guardian of Charlottetown, notes Parks Canada's interest in renaming the Port-la-Joye-Fort Amherst National Historic Site. The Amherst of the name was associated with atrocities against indigenous peoples and Acadians. Is renaming the site a good way to make a rhetorical break with the past? I do wonder.
A new name may be part of the future for Port-la-Joye-Fort Amherst as Parks Canada is putting forward a request to the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada to look into giving the national historic site a name that better reflects its past.
Parks Canada is putting forward a request to the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada to look into renaming Port-la-Joye-Fort Amherst, a national historic site on the southwestern entrance to Charlottetown Harbour.
This is coming after local aboriginal leaders, the P.E.I. Presbytery of the United Church of Canada and the Council of Canadians have all expressed wishes to have the name changed.
"I am pleased that they are reviewing my request and the 638 other people that signed the petition to have his name removed," said John Joe Sark, a member of the Mi’kmaq Grand Council.
[. . .]
Some historians believe Amherst used biological warfare against indigenous people through advising the distribution of smallpox-laced blankets.
A new name may be part of the future for Port-la-Joye-Fort Amherst as Parks Canada is putting forward a request to the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada to look into giving the national historic site a name that better reflects its past.
Parks Canada is putting forward a request to the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada to look into renaming Port-la-Joye-Fort Amherst, a national historic site on the southwestern entrance to Charlottetown Harbour.
This is coming after local aboriginal leaders, the P.E.I. Presbytery of the United Church of Canada and the Council of Canadians have all expressed wishes to have the name changed.
"I am pleased that they are reviewing my request and the 638 other people that signed the petition to have his name removed," said John Joe Sark, a member of the Mi’kmaq Grand Council.
[. . .]
Some historians believe Amherst used biological warfare against indigenous people through advising the distribution of smallpox-laced blankets.