Toronto Lower Don Lands Redevelopment | ?m | ?s | Waterfront Toronto

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New island in the Port Lands named Ookwemin Minising, place of black cherry trees

Today, Mayor Olivia Chow and Councillor Paula Fletcher (Toronto-Danforth) were joined by Elder Shelley Charles (Chippewas of Georgina Island First Nation) and members of an Indigenous Advisory Circle to announce the name of the new island that is being created in the Port Lands and its new park.

The announcement comes after a year-long engagement and consultation process where the City of Toronto turned over naming power to the Indigenous community as part of its commitment to reconciliation. Now, the Circle is returning names for both the new island and the new park as a gift, sharing their symbolic meaning and significance to the history of the lands.

Ookwemin Minising

The Circle chose Ookwemin Minising (pronounced Oh-kway-min Min-nih-sing) as the island’s name meaning “place of the black cherry trees” in Anishinaabemowin/Ojibwemowin. Alongside the new island name, the Circle also chose a name for the surrounding park, determined as Biidaasige Park (pronounced Bee-daw-sih-geh) meaning “sunlight shining towards us” in Anishinaabemowin/Ojibwemowin.


The City collaborated with LURA Consulting and MinoKamik Collective led by Elder Shelley Charles on an Indigenous engagement process to discover, reflect on and determine place names for the island and park.


This process included an Indigenous Advisory Circle comprised of Elders, Knowledge Keepers, language speakers, youth and community members, as well as broader engagement with First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities. The Circle met seven times this year, walking the land to discuss the area’s history, cultural values and stories to determine the names.

Two hundred years ago, the area now called the Port Lands, was one of the largest freshwater marshes on Lake Ontario. Elders in the Indigenous Advisory Circle recalled that this area had an abundance of Ookwemin “black cherry” trees that grew throughout the waterfront area.

The island’s name honours the natural history of the land, is grounded in a vision of environmental restoration and highlights the future care of Indigenous plant communities, emphasized through the native planting palettes and ecological design of the Port Lands Flood Protection project, and guided by Elder Shelley Charles and the MinoKamik Collective.

The Port Lands Flood Protection project is renaturalizing the mouth of the Don River. As a result, this new island is forming in the area, bounded by Lake Ontario, the Keating Channel and the new river mouth. Toronto City Council directed City staff to further engage with First Nations, Inuit, Métis and urban Indigenous communities and report back on a permanent name for the island in April 2024 at the Executive Committee meeting.

Biidaasige Park

The park’s name relates to the hopeful light of a new day shining on waterway restoration and reconciliation, and acknowledges the relationship between the earth, water, sun and moon as relatives and teachers. The name recognizes water awareness as central to the Port Lands Flood Protection project and creation of the renaturalized Don River, valley and park. Additionally, the name honours the Indigenous water walker movement, an Anishinaabe initiative led by Josephine Mandamin, that highlights the significance of water as essential to life.
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Something tells me it may not stick and locals will continue calling it Villar's Island just like Yonge Dundas Square is still called Yonge Dundas Square.
 
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I doubt that locals will still call it "Villiers Island" because most people wouldn't have any clue that is its temporary name - it only officially became an island in the last few months.

I like the new name! People can say "Tecumseth" and "Mississauga" and heck "Toronto" - we'll get used to "Ookwemin Minising"

(I do think people might mispronounce that first syllable as "Ooo" instead of "oh," though)
 
Parkdalian said:
"Tecumseth" and "Mississauga" and heck "Toronto"
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3, 4 and 3 syllable names respectively. 6 syllables is a mouthful and will get abbreviated. Kinda like how people don't say "let's go to Province of Ontario" (7 syllables), but instead shorten to Ontario (4).
 
afransen said:
I think picking a native language name for the island is appropriate (unlike Sankofa square which is ahistorical and without local cultural context), but a 6 syllable name is not ideal and unlikely to gain traction for locals.
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I concur, but would go a touch further and say that its important to choose a name that an English language speaker could phonetically sound out.

Toronto is fairly straight forward, and note that we anglicized the spelling from Tkaronto which would not be intuitive to an English speaker.

Likewise, Canada is derived from Kanata though that would seem straight forward to sound out.

But let's have another look at Mississauga, shall we?

In its original language the name is Misi-zaagiing

I fail to understand why we are adopting names that aren't easy to say, using the spelling of a language most don't speak.

We can put the original spelling of the original language in the fine print; but we ought to aim for a name that will be easily said and widely adopted.
 
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...conversely, if they where named as such from the beginning, we would unlikely have trouble pronouncing it now. /shrug
 
Northern Light said:
I concur, but would go a touch further and say that its important to choose a name that an English language speaker could phonetically sound out.

Toronto is fairly straight forward, and note that we anglicized the spelling from Tkaronto which would not be intuitive to an English speaker.

Likewise, Canada is derived from Kanata though that would seem straight forward to sound out.

But let's have another look at Mississauga, shall we?

In its original language the name is Misi-zaagiing

I fail to understand why we are adopting names that aren't easy to say, using the spelling of a language most don't speak.

We can put the original spelling of the original language in the fine print; but we ought to aim for a name that will be easily said and widely adopted.
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I agree with your sentiments entirely. Who decides this naming business ? And why do we really need another name for the area in question. Has there been any public input on this ? The naming of Sankofa Square should have been lesson enough.
 
Parkdalian said:
I doubt that locals will still call it "Villiers Island" because most people wouldn't have any clue that is its temporary name - it only officially became an island in the last few months.

I like the new name! People can say "Tecumseth" and "Mississauga" and heck "Toronto" - we'll get used to "Ookwemin Minising"

(I do think people might mispronounce that first syllable as "Ooo" instead of "oh," though)
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Perhaps it could be written as Ōkwemin Minising. After all, Māori uses macrons and such names with macrons are common throughout Aotearoa (aka New Zealand).

Macron (diacritic) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
I agree that the name will probably be mispronounced, but to touch on @afransen point on the 6 syllable name, "Minising" roughly means island (Ojibwe dictionary), while "Ookwemin" is what means black cherry tree (Ojibwe dictionary). It's likely that most people will simply reduce the name to just Ookwemin.


NB: To add since @Johnny Au posted as I was writing this message, the macron could be used, but that would likely be part of a larger discussion regarding the orthography (how to write) of the Anishinaabemowin/Ojibwemowin languages
 
ethan.l.cecc said:
I agree that the name will probably be mispronounced, but to touch on @afransen point on the 6 syllable name, "Minising" roughly means island (Ojibwe dictionary), while "Ookwemin" is what means black cherry tree (Ojibwe dictionary). It's likely that most people will simply reduce the name to just Ookwemin.


NB: To add since @Johnny Au posted as I was writing this message, the macron could be used, but that would likely be part of a larger discussion regarding the orthography (how to write) of the Anishinaabemowin/Ojibwemowin language
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We all learned to say "Eh-toh-bee-koh" from Etobicoke, so hopefully the good people of Toronto can at least learn to say "Oh-kway-min".
 
When companies launch a new mouthwash brand they’ll go through extensive market testing and research to see how well it’ll get picked up verbally, whether it’ll market well, how it will look on adverts of different sizes, and in different light conditions etc. just a rigorous selection process.

It doesn’t seem like we take any such practical steps for our renaming.

Does anyone know of any practical requirements for municipal naming? Like, is there a max character limit for street signs? Consideration of way finding? Do they empanel a group of multicultural citizens to weigh in on it, see if there’s any meanings in other languages. I’d like to think they at least figure out if we’re naming something after a horrid person (oops, Rob Ford Stadium, how’d that get here)

I do agree that folks are going to rename it something else. What? No clue. Me personally- I still call it skydome, Dundas square and even struggle with Scotiabank Centre (ACC just feels way less corporate and bland). I’m also likely six names behind on Hummingbird

I do wonder if in 20yrs we’ll have the name down pat (even slightly adjusted), or look upon this as a period of overcorrection where we did everything superficial to honour the indigenous people except actually help them.
 
Sometimes understanding the pronunciation of a name is breaking it down into familiar words we can associate with, In this case, Ookwemin Minising becomes "Okay Min Minny Sing"...which is kinda catchy, IMO. Then tweak it back up to it's correct pronunciation, (Oh-kway-min Min-nih-sing), particularly with the first part of the name....

...and Bob's your uncle? Well, that's depending on how well we accept the new name here outside it's pronunciation.
 
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