inier, Tulutson Glacier. The federal board wanted Crater Glacier. “But then it melted several years later,” he said, “so it became a moot point.”
The federal government also requires each name change be written in Roman alphabet, Maki said. That can create a tough path for proposed names such as duxᵂho’bud with no phonetic alternative.
The state board also suggests proposals avoid hyphens and apostrophes. Names with commercial overtones should also be bypassed. “Otherwise, we’d have Pepsi Mountain,” said Maki.
Those are fighting words
Geographic name changes may seem like a small potatoes but Maki said that at times proposals, which are a doorway into history, create tension. “Too often, it turns into a Hatfield and McCoy situation,” he said.
In the 1980s, the board heard numerous proposals to change the name of Mt. Rainier. Some proponents wanted Mt. Tacoma. Others suggested Mt. Tahoma or Mt. Tahhoma. A number of Native tribes pushed for Ti’Swaq. The board denied all of the proposals, Maki said, and members decided they wouldn’t rehear a proposal because a name change would have serious financial implications.
But Maki said someone contacted him recently who wanted to restart a campaign to change Mt. Rainier’s name. So far, he hasn’t received the proposal, but it could arrive any day. “I’ll be getting a lot of opinions on that one,” Maki said.
The current list of applications contains a proposal to change Soap Lake, east of the Cascade Mountains in Grant County, to Lake Smokiam. One of two proponents wrote that more than 11,000 years ago, the neighboring
indigenous people named it Smokiam, which translates into “Healing Waters.” Euro-Americans changed the name to Soap Lake just before 1900. “This act [of reinstating Lake Smokiam] would be the repatriation of the lake’s name to the Indians,” he wrote.
But the city of Soap Lake opposes the name change, even while its municipal website notes the city name originates from Smokiam. Other opponents include the Grant County Board of Commissioners, the county sheriff and Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation. The original proposal for changing the lake’s name came to the committee in April 2010. The current proposal, which contains supporting documents and letters of opposition, runs just shy of 700 pages.
When the original proposal to call the water mass Lake Smokiam arrived in early 2010, the naming board faced its own dilemma. The state legislature had just eliminated it, due to budget cuts. The vote meant Washington was the only state not to have a geographic board. When the group became active again in November 2011, it was rechristened the state naming committee. Staff members who worked with the department of natural resources then became members of the state naming board.
Maki said that not only can state residents comment in writing on proposed names change, the public is invited to comment at committee meetings. When the committee hears proposals for names changes to Squamish Harbor, he said he hopes to have a phonetic pronunciation of duxᵂho’bud. Maki said he’s looking forward to be committee’s discussion on the proposal: “This is one of the doozies.”