Elders want an all-Inuttitut name for Nunavik's newest park

Nunavik's new provincial park in Richmond Gulf and Clearwater Lake region won't be called Tasikimi after all.

A park working group rejected the name "tasikimi" because elders felt this invented word watered down the two languages, which are already under pressure from French and English.

Tasikimi, with its combination of Cree and Inuttitut, had been promoted as a way for the park's official name to reflect its historic use by Inuit and Cree.

Instead, a proposal will go to Quebec's place name commission, asking the Commission de toponymie du Québec, to give the park an Inuttitut name: Tursujuq, which means opening or throat in Inuttitut.

The park is now officially called by a ponderous French name, Parc national Lacs-Guillaume-Delisle-et-à-l'Eau-Claire, usually abbreviated as LGD-LEC or LD-LC similar to how the La Grande dams are referred to in French as LG-1 or LG-2.

Councillors at the recent Kativik Regional Government meeting in Kuujjuaraapik approved a resolution, asking for the new park to be called Tursujuq or, as it will be called by its legal French name, Parc national Tursujuq.

Councillors also asked the commission to rename Lac Guillaume-Délisle (known as Richmond Gulf in English) as Lac Tasiujaq and they asked for Lac à l'Eau Claire (known as Clearwater Lake in English) to be renamed Lac Wiyashakimi.

The resolution says another lake within the future park will be called after Guillaume Délisle, who was a French mapmaker in the 1700s.

This past week, Quebec held public hearings on the future park in Umiujaq and in Kuujjuaraapik-Whapmagoostui.

Information on the future park and Nunavik's two other parks, Pingualuit and Kuururjuaq can be found on the new Nunavik parks web site in Inuttitut, French and English at www.parcsnunavik.ca or www.nunavikparks.ca.

Kuururjuaq provincial park near Kangiqsualujjuaq should be officially proclaimed as Nunavik's second provincial park this summer.