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B

efore the next issue of Main Street comes out, we will have survived a federal election campaign, chosen a new government, and celebrated Canada Day. When could it be more appropriate to wonder where the name Canada came from?

At the time of Confederation, Canada was only one of many names proposed for the new country. While the word existed, it referred only to two of the four colonies that initially formed our country: Upper and Lower Canada. Names proposed included Acadia, Tupona, Efisga, Aquilonia, Borealia, Hochelaga, Laurentia and a couple of dozen others. During the debate in the legislative assembly of the time, Thomas D'Arcy McGee declared that he would have trouble waking up one morning as a Tuponian or a Hochelagander. He seems to have favoured Canadian. There were surely lobbyists for each different name, and had they had television in the 1860's, it would likely have become the most important single issue that the politicians had to deal with. We would have ended up with a much simpler name such as Britannica or Transylvania.

The origin of the name Canada had been a subject of debate for years before Confederation. One theory credits the Portuguese. It suggests that they were among the earliest Europeans to see our coast, and they dismissed it with the words Aca Nada, or 'here is nothing'. In P.G. Roy's 1906 publication Les Noms Geographiques de la prov. de Québec, he lists arguments that credit the Portuguese and the Spanish, who used the word Canada for road. The French and Danish, he reports, could have a claim because of a military encampment that once belonged to Caesar in the lower Seine valley called Bas-de-Canada. The name had been shortened from Castra Danorum (camp des Danois). The Germans also had a claim because of a French translation of a German study of reed-filled flatlands in the Amazon that they called Canadas. This argument involved Spanish as well, because the Spanish word for reed is Canna and if ada is added to it, the new word means clearing. I still can't see how this applies to our country, but then Roy was only reporting all the different explanations. Narrowing it down, he concluded that despite the similarities to words in other European languages, the most likely sources were either the Cree and Montagnais, or the Iroquois of the St. Lawrence. That is where the controversy started.

The French under Champlain had allied themselves originally with the Algonquin and Montagnais, but in the 1530's Jacques Cartier had met what appeared to be a different people on the shores of the St. Lawrence. According to Roy, they were the Iroquois, who were subsequently displaced, perhaps as a result of diseases brought on by their interaction with Cartier. The argument as to whether Cartier met Iroquois or some other band has been going on since the colony was first created, and depending on who is right, the word Canada could mean quite different things. According to Father Albert Lacombe, writing in 1874, if the Montagnais were the people who gave us the name Canada, it came from their word for foreigner, or someone coming from afar: Kannatats. It is possible that the early settlers accepted the name that they were called as a way of having an identity to the Montagnais, and that over time they became Canadiens. Certainly the Montagnais and Algonquin were the ones that they had the most interaction with. If this is in fact the origin of the name Canada, it seems appropriate. After all, we have been told many times that we are a nation of immigrants. Wouldn't it be fitting if the name of our country actually means 'foreigner'?

Most of the arguments and records of names were presented by clergy, and in 1857 Mgr. Laflèche wrote that the name came from the word P'Konata used both by the Cree and the Montagnais. The expression means 'without a plan' and seems to have been the verbal equivalent of a shrug. Roy says that if you were to ask a Cree what he wants, and he had no ready response, he might say 'P'Konata'. Today, if you ask a Canadian what he wants, his equivalent answer would be 'I dunno!' or 'Je l'sais-tu?' Mgr. Laflèche's idea did not help Thomas D'Arcy McGee in his quest to not become a Hochelagander.

Thankfully for our self-image, Roy argues persuasively in favour of the name Canada having come from the Iroquois. He presents pages of arguments from Mr. Cuoq, who, back at the time of Confederation, seems to have been the authority on the Iroquois language. Cuoq sets out his proof that, based upon the words that Cartier recorded at Stadaconna and Hochelaga, he met the Iroquois, not the Montagnais. This turns out to have been fortunate, because in Iroquois, Canada means village, or agglomeration of tents, a more attractive meaning than a shrug. Cartier, he argues, took the word to be the name of the place itself, and it stuck.

References: Les Noms Geographiques de la prov. de Quebec -P.G. Roy, Levis 1906
Naming Canada, Stories about Place Names from the Canadian Geographic -Alan Rayburn
Special thanks to Sheila Eskenazi

Joseph Graham has written a book that features a select number of stories of Laurentian places and how they got their names. To learn more, click here.

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This material may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the written permission of the author. © Joseph Graham