Nine proposals by Native American tribes to rename features across Washington state were approved by the Board of Natural Resources during a meeting on Tuesday morning. The proposals came in the U.S. Department of the Interior’s 2021 orders to rename geographic features throughout the country bearing derogatory names.
“By changing these names, we ensure that Washington’s geography will continue to reflect the history of Native American women on our landscape, but with the dignity and respect these women deserve,” said Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz, the elected official who chairs the Board of Natural Resources. “The beautiful, thoughtful cultural legacy these names provide to us all would not have been possible without the time, effort and support that our state’s tribes have provided throughout this process.”
A pair of Columbia River Islands in Klickitat County will now be named Sq’wanana, meaning “two sitting on lap,” reflecting the names of the islands in the Wishxam language.
The lake southeast of Blue Lake in Skamania County will now be known as Aalvic Wahtum, after Lucille Aalvic, the first officially enrolled citizen of the Yakama Nation. Aalvic lived in Stevenson after being removed from her original family site by the Army Corps of Engineers during the construction of the Bonneville Dam.
The Skamania County butte will now be named Pataniks Pushtye, a reference to the name of Lulukash, the child of the woman for whom the nearby twin buttes are named.
The creek near the East Canyon Ridge in Skamania County will now be called Timla Wapykt, from the traditional name of the adjacent butte, Timla-Timla Pushtye, meaning “little heart mountain of that shape.”
The Skamania County stream flowing into the Little White Salmon River is now named Shluxiksikswana, meaning “the eating place,” after the Klickitat village site in the area.
A peak in Columbia County is now named Wenaha Peak after the Wenaha River running below it. Wenaha is a Cayuse place name.
An Okanogan County peak will be renamed Condon Mountain, after a well-established family from the Kartar Valley in the Colville Reservation and the associated Condon Spring.
A creek in Stevens County will now be named Snqilt Creek, for the area above Little Dalles where the creek is located.
A Jefferson County creek is now named Noskeliijuu, meaning “the place where the whale dropped,” a name used in the Quinault tribal histories for at least four generations.
The board also approved a spelling correction for a bay in the San Juan Islands. The formerly titled “Reads” Bay will now be known as Reeds Bay. The name change corrects the spelling of the name to how it was spelled by Tacee and John Reed, the first settlers on Decatur Island in the late 1860s.
