Rematriation and reconciliation

Log in to listen to this article

Reclaiming Indigenous place names is not merely a matter of changing geographic toponyms. It is a legal, cultural, historical, and linguistic process rooted in Indigenous laws and relationships to land.

That message is captured in The Rematriation of Indigenous Place Names, a Yellowhead Institute Special Report we released earlier this year.

For centuries, many Indigenous place names were erased and replaced by colonial ones. Indigenous Peoples throughout Canada are actively reclaiming these names. This process of reclaiming names is a starting point for learning Indigenous law, language, and land.

Language places legal norms, values, and histories onto the places around us. Indigenous place names, for example, inscribe stories, territorial occupation, rights, and responsibilities onto the land. For many Indigenous Peoples, place names are deeply intertwined with Indigenous law. By pairing language with law, they create cultural and legal expectations reaffirmed through governance, including potlatches and feasts.

Rematriating place names

Place names provide insight into Indigenous law, and so do the processes used to reclaim them. In our report, we argue that restoring Indigenous place names occurs through rematriation, including correcting past harms, restoring authority, and honouring leaders whose authority has been silenced. This includes restoring and affirming the authority of Indigenous women and 2SLGBTQIA+ leaders in Indigenous law, culture, and governance.

Reclaiming Indigenous languages and laws without restoring the rightful authority of all community members is not enough. Rematriation requires ensuring that no one is left behind in the work of setting aside harmful decisions and making things right.

These decisions about place names are guided by Indigenous legal processes. They can be:

• Corrective: substituting an incorrect or misleading name with an accurate one
• Restorative: placing a name that addresses harms and restores those impacted
• Instructive: placing a name that creates expectations for future conduct

These legal principles can be identified in processes across Canada in which Indigenous peoples are actively engaged in the reclamation of place names. 

For example, in 2024 and 2025, multiple street names commemorating Bishop Vital-Justin Grandin were changed in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Grandin played a key role in implementing residential schools. A naming council guided the process with youth, elders, knowledge keepers, and residential school survivors.

These new names include:

• Abinojii Mikanah: children’s way in Anishinaabemowin (Ojibwe)
• Awasisak Mēskanôw: children’s road in Cree
• Taapweewin Way: truth in Michif

The naming council’s composition demonstrates a commitment to making things right without leaving people behind. Its decisions are restorative because they honour children, and are corrective and instructive because they replace harmful commemorations with names that inscribe truth onto the land.

The Winnipeg process is a powerful example of how place-name reclamation can operate as a remedial process and forms part of a broader movement underway across Canada.

In 2020, a group of 17 women known as iyiniw iskwewak wihtwâwin, or the Indigenous Women’s Action Movement, worked with the City of Edmonton to place Indigenous names on its electoral districts. After consulting knowledge keepers, the group proposed 12 names, which the city council made official through a bylaw within months. iyiniw iskwewak wihtwâwin’s consultation illustrates one way to meet procedural obligations within Indigenous law. It also shows that place naming can occur in efficient, tailored, and community-grounded ways.

These renaming processes are also occurring in British Columbia. The Haida Nation is on a decades-long journey to restore Haida place names. In 2010, the archipelago formerly known as the Queen Charlotte Islands was restored to Haida Gwaii. The name change occurred through negotiations that led British Columbia to exercise its naming authority under the Land Act to restore the name through the Haida Gwaii Reconciliation Act.

^{The Ma’amtagila Declaration of Sovereignty at Hiladi on Vancouver Island in 2025. (Desiree Wallace Photo)}

By 2022, Queen Charlotte City in Haida Gwaii had been changed to Daajing Giids. The process began with a petition led by a Haida language immersion program. It was supported by public surveys and a village council decision, later approved by the province through an amendment to the village’s letters patent under section 17 of the Local Government Act.

That same year, Haida names were restored to multiple geographical features, including bays, straits, inlets, narrows, and hills. This was the result of a partnership between the Haida Nation and the province’s Geographical Names Office under authority delegated by British Columbia under the Land Act.

Although achieved through multiple measures, the reclamation of Haida place names shares the common result of correcting wrongs. Restoring these names engages the Haida language and reveals Haida oral histories, traditional knowledge, and responsibilities for caring for Haida Gwaii.

Whether in Manitoba, Alberta, or British Columbia, decisions to change place names are about governance, law, and correcting wrongs. They show how Indigenous law is embedded in decisions to breathe continued life into Indigenous languages and place names.

Because reclaiming place names is about Indigenous cultures, languages, and laws—not only the names themselves—it requires sustained, cooperative, and deliberate work to make things right.

Promoting justice

Indigenous law is as relevant and applicable as Canadian law, yet many institutions are only beginning to appreciate its practical application.

As place name reclamation shows, learning Indigenous law need not be daunting. It can begin with grassroots calls for change, community-led processes, and efforts to learn the Indigenous names of the places where we live and visit. Renaming practices promote justice by restoring relationships to land and, through truth-telling, gifting, and witnessing, model remedies that extend beyond place name reclamation itself.

We may get it wrong the first time. But as Musqueam Chief Wayne Sparrow said when Musqueamview Street (officially spelled šxʷməθkʷəy̓əmasəm Street) was renamed from Trutch Street:

“The colonial system forced us to speak English and took our language away, and I have all the confidence in the world that the people who speak English will … learn the other way. The only thing is that we won’t punish them if they can’t speak [our language]… That’s the difference. We’re not going to beat you for it, like we were.”