On October 25th and 27th, my interview with CBC Unreserved host Falen Johnson aired on CBC radio. The interview is titled: “Names erased: How Indigenous people are reclaiming what was lost”. In the interview, many people are interviewed about the powerful acts reclaiming, including Indigenous people’s very own names and place names in their own languages.

A follow-up article was also published about my interview on the CBC’s website, “How the erasure of their place names can have 'real-life effects' on Indigenous people”.

My interview builds off of a policy brief about Reclaiming Indigenous Place Names that I co-authored with Dr. Daniel Rück (University of Ottawa) for the Yellowhead Institute in 2019. Dr. Rück and I wrote about the powerful acts of reclaiming that Indigenous peoples are involved in on many fronts. But we also do an analysis of the harmful settler process of renaming that happened across Canada. Through this analysis, we provide numerous examples of sites of transformation, including mapping or cartographic practices, land use conservation, and treaty and self-government approaches.

Since this interview aired, I have been truly humbled by the amount of people who have reached out to me and shared their experiences in the work that they are doing to reclaim Indigenous place names, to change harmful and offensive names, and who want to learn more about Indigenous languages and place names. I did not expect this amount of feedback from people, and I thank you for sharing your time with me and taking up this work.

T’oyaxsut ‘nüüsm. Thank you.