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November/December 1997 issue	In this issue Table of Contents Editor's Notebook Feature: Mussel bound Feature: Global warming Write to Know À la carte Our Home and Native Tongue

THE MOST IMAGINATIVE ACT of place-naming in Canadian history happened in Quebec this summer, causing delight but also deep anger. Consider an island newly christened Le Coeur Éclaté. It sounds as stark in English: Burst Heart. An odd, arresting label for an unpopulated islet in northern Quebec, this place name is surprising because it celebrates a living Québécois writer. Le Coeur Éclaté is the title of a 1993 novel by Quebec's most famous modern playwright, Michel Tremblay.

Think of it. A Canadian place has been named to honour an artist, not a caribou, not a salmon, and not by adapting an aboriginal phrase that means "many waters meet here." We possess such place names aplenty, and historical habit bids us keep them. But this is a new, man-made island. Surely every spot on our map need not recall the dead? Let the living soul of our country, our artists, be glorified in new place names! Let's face it, when Canadians and most peoples of the world start tagging their landscape, the customary recipients of toponymic fame are the usual suspects, our deceased political "betters." Believe me, after studying the world's place names for a decade, I can tell you this is a revolutionary gesture by members of la Commission de toponymie, Quebec's geographic names board.

The commissioners decided to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the province's controversial Bill 101, the Charter of the French Language, by naming 101 islands in the Caniapiscau Reservoir. This vast sheet of water covering more than 4,000 square kilometres was created by the diversion of natural waterways in building the James Bay hydro-electric project. It is about 400 kilometres south-southwest of Kuujjuaq, formerly Fort Chimo, at the southern end of Ungava Bay. The commissioners sought to create a "geographic poem," where each island in this newborn archipelago would bear a resonant name drawn from the title of a story, a poem, or a book by Quebec authors important now and since the postwar period.

Startling, exotic, and beautiful are many of these new place names. Strange strands to wander include the footprintless beaches of Le Nid du Silence (nest of silence). It is taken from a 1992 poem by chansonnier Gilles Vigneault, beloved for his song "Mon Pays." Montréal theatre director and playwright Jean-Claude Germain has a misty hummock named after his play L'École des Rêves (school of dreams). Another evocative island is Le Chuchotis des Rives (the soft whisper of shores), from a 1994 poem by Jacques Ouellet. Acadian author Antonine Maillet sees her 1990 novel L'Oursiade (the bear saga) as the name of an island. The whole archipelago has the official name of Le Jardin au Bout du Monde (garden at the end of the world), from a 1975 short story by Gabrielle Roy.

Quebec Cree and Inuit leaders are furious at the provincial government for these new names. Native land was flooded to create the reservoir, they point out. And the Charter of the French Language, which made la belle langue the only official speech of Quebec, did nothing to assuage First Peoples' worries about the survival of native tongues. Their leaders say these are not new islands, but the tops of flooded hills that had aboriginal designations. It does seem provocative to have foisted the names of Québécois writers on places that have no connection with their works. Recently the commission said it would reexamine the plan and possibly replace some of the literary titles with older Cree place names.

English Canada has no places named after Canadian writers, artists or their works. Oh, we have Flin Flon in Manitoba, named after Professor Flonatin (nicknamed Flin Flon), who uncovers an underground city of gold in a 1905 British novel, The Sunless City. We have Cape Gargantua, Ont., named after one of Rabelais' giants. We have Bracebridge and Gravenhurst in Ontario, borrowed from Washington Irving's American short stories. But someday, riffling through an atlas of Canada, let us see: The Stone Angel Mountains, Who Has Seen the Wind Coulee, Double Hook Canyon, or even, for a chuckle, Sarah Binks' Bog.

Bill Casselman is the author of Canadian Garden Words and A Dictionary of Medical Derivations, both published this fall.

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