What's in a Name?
By any other name are these islands just as sweet, just as protected or just more imperiled?
As this essay hits your inbox, Representative Tom Tiffany is preparing to introduce a bill later this morning at a Washington D.C. hearing of the Federal Lands Subcommittee. The proposal would change the name of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore to the “Apostle Islands National Park and Preserve.“
What difference does a name make anyway? It’s just a few letters on a park sign or a map right? “A rose by any other name” and all that as Shakespeare says in Act 2, Scene 2 of Romeo & Juliet. Well, this time the Bard may have gotten it wrong, and this name change may not smell as “sweet” as it seems.
I ease the Little Dipper out beyond the break wall and turn her bow north towards Wiigobiish Miniss, I mean Basswood Island, hoping to strike further out to the caves on the north end of Wilson’s, I mean Askew, I mean Illinois, Austrian, I mean Hermit Island.
These 22 islands (21 in the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore) have been called by many names, those names changing like autumn leaves on the sheaves of old maps blowing on the winds of history. To the French voyageurs, Stockton Island was Presque Isle and Basswood was Isle Michele. In 1874, explorer Henry Schoolcraft assigned each island the name of a state — South Twin was Georgia, Rocky Island became Mississippi, Basswood was Illinois. Local fishermen had their own sometimes contradictory names - to some, North Twin was Brownstone and to others Brownstone was Basswood Island, to still others North Twin was Cat Island while what we today call Cat has been called everything from Texas to Hemlock to Shoe.
Collectively, they were the Islands of Chagaouimigong to the French, a mangling of the Ojibwe word for the bay itself. Schoolcraft tried to hang the name Federation Islands on them. While to the Ojibwe they are Wenabozho Ominisan. It was the Jesuit priests who first called them the “Apostles” a name commonly in use by 1744.
Names come and go, seemingly as fleeting as notes written in beach sand erased with the ebb and flow of every wave. That does not however, mean that they are unimportant.
Naming is an act of possession. To declare that a place shall be called what you decree it to be called is like planting the flag of the conqueror in the rocky soil. That name forever changes the trajectory of that place in the human mind and history. It should be done with wisdom and foresight. A name can pay tribute to or completely erase everything that came before in a kind of linguistic imperialism. It can be a recognition of natural history, a revision of human history, tell a story or be the patronizing act of kissing the ring of an often times distant superior or benefactor.
It is never nothing. Every name is a place marker in human history and speaks more often about our own hopes and dreams and world view than it does about the place itself. Every name is an echo of the human relationship to the land. It tells a story. Whose story is told and who is given the right to tell that story makes a name much more than just a few scrawled letters on a map.
It was an understanding of that importance that led the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore to add the Ojibwe place names to its official map and brochure in 2022, an acknowledgement of the role of the Ojibwe people in Island history and its present. The names are written in Ojibwemowin, originally an oral language, and so the park also added an audio version of the place names to its website where visitors can hear each name pronounced by former National Park Service Ranger and Red Cliff tribal member Damon Panek.
To both see and hear those names is an echo of the past and a recognition of the ongoing presence and importance of Ojibwe culture in the area today. It goes far beyond simple words on a map.
Today (Wednesday, July 24, 2024) the “Apostle Islands National Park and Preserve Act” will be introduced in Congress seeking to change a name on those maps once again. And like all name changes, this one too would have consequences.
The National Park Service manages 430 sites in the United States under at least 28 different categories. While all are considered National Park Service units, they are not all given the same level of protection and may have vastly different regulations and uses. In other words, a “Park” and a “Lakeshore” and a “Preserve” are not, by any other name, the same.
Under its current title, the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore is one of three “National Lakeshore” units in the country (Pictured Rocks and Sleeping Bear Dunes are the others). Indiana Dunes began as a National Lakeshore but was upgraded to National Park Status in 2019. According to National Park Service (NPS) definitions, a “Lakeshore” is meant to “focus on the preservation of natural values while at the same time providing water-oriented recreation.” Recreation is the key word. Sailing, kayaking, and power boating are the main uses of the area. Unlike in a national “park,” hunting is allowed on almost all the lands in the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore.
Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado
“National Park” status is considered the highest recognition a landscape can receive. National Parks are the crown jewels of America’s landscapes. According to the NPS, a park “contains a variety of resources and encompasses large land or water areas to help provide adequate protection of the resources.” While a national park is meant to be “for the benefit and enjoyment of the people” as stated in its Organic Act of 1872, resource protection is paramount and such things as hunting, logging, and oil development are not allowed in a national “park” although they could be allowed in a “national preserve.” Currently there are 63 “national parks” in the United States.
In contrast to a “national park” or “national lakeshore, a “preserve” is a less delineated designation. Often, but not always, set adjacent to a national park, a preserve is “established primarily for the protection of certain resources,” according to the National Park Service whose definition says that activities like “hunting and fishing or the extraction of minerals and fuels may be permitted if they do not jeopardize the natural values.” What exactly those “certain resources” are and what is and is not allowed in a “preserve” is usually defined within the congressional legislation that designates it. For instance, the 1974 legislation creating Florida’s Big Cypress National Preserve allowed for hunting, oil and gas extraction, off-roading, private land ownership, cattle grazing, and other uses traditionally not allowed in a national “park.” It would presumably be up to the National Park Service to determine if those activities “jeopardize the natural values” in the preserve.
There are currently 21 national preserves in 11 states.
Just what the name change being proposed could mean here in the Apostle Islands has yet to be spelled out on the maps or in the legislation. More visibility to the general public certainly since many travelers seek out “national parks” collecting them like passport stamps and bucket list check offs. The change from “Lakeshore” to “Park” will mean a loss of hunting rights since by definition hunting is allowed in lakeshores but not in parks. What exactly will and will not be allowed in the “preserve” section of the park (listed as “Sand Island” on the map accompanying the Tiffany proposal) is not yet known. The proposal mentions hunting but will it also allow private landownership as in the Big Cyprus National Preserve? Oil and mineral extraction? Who decides? By what process? And what will the process say about who does and does not get a voice in deciding by what name we call this place?
What’s in a name? A lot, it turns out. I spin the Little Dipper north towards the caves on Devils Island once known as Barney Island to some and as Lamborn’s to others. It was also called Louisiana and Rabbit, and …
By any other name, will this place still be as beautiful? Will it still be as protected? By what name shall we call it?
— Jeff Rennicke (photos by the author unless otherwise noted. Opinions expressed here are those of the guy behind the windshield of the Little Dipper and do not represent the viewpoint or positions of any other individual, organization, or entity.)
That's very interesting, names are so important and designations are too.
Here in Scotland, we're currently looking to create a further national park, which will be an interesting process. We also have a wealth of historical connections in our place names with many coming from Scottish Gaelic, often the Gaelic name sits awkwardly next to an Anglicised version.
Seeing that this is currently backed by all and only Republican's I'm simply so curious as to the. real why... and why now? Something doesn't add up and something feels odd with how rushed it all feels. He says he consulted with the tribes. I'm curious to hear more about their thoughts as well.