Two Names for Everything

Wrote a column for tomorrow's paper that I've had half-written for a long time.

Simply A Musing • By Paul J. Henderson

Two Names for Everything

Welcome to Chilliwack, the land where everything has two names, if not even more.

Newcomers to this city can be forgiven for getting lost and confused by areas, streets, facilities and even bodies of water. I've been here for less than four years and am still baffled at the multiple references given to things here in Chilliwack—or Chilliwhack as the municipality was spelled prior to amalgamation.

Within the city itself many residents live in Rosedale, Greendale, Yarrow and so on. When I first came to town, I had a friend from journalism school who I contacted because I thought she was from here.

"I live in Chilliwack now, aren't you from here?" I asked.

"No, I'm from Sardis," she said.

Of course all cities have this, but I feel like here, particularly with all the First Nations bands, duplicate naming is rife.

At the end of this month, the Evans Road Connector will be officially opened. (Of course this was originally to be called the Evans Flyover, and is often referred to as the Evans Overpass or the Evans Interchange.)

The bridge links Evans Road on the south side of the highway with what was once called Evans Parkway. A few months back the city officially changed the name of Evans Parkway to Evans Road to avoid what is, as manager of transportation Rod Sanderson told me, one of many examples where roads have two names.

Evans Road was to go right through the Squiala Reserve to join up with Ashwell Road, but Squiala had other ideas. The road will be called Eagle Parkway through the band's land, so it'll be Evans to Eagle to Ashwell.

Once it's open, follow Ashwell and turn right on Spadina and you come to a building that is my particular pet peeve, much to the amusement of my colleagues: The Landing Sports Centre, which is still almost always followed by—even on the city's website—with the brackets (Ag-Rec Centre).

Can we not drop the Ag-Rec by now?

But The Landing is located near the Landing Leisure Centre and that whole area is called the Landing, which is just confusing so maybe it should be Ag-Rec?

From the Leisure Centre, follow Hodgins east and it turns into Cheam across Yale.

Ahhh, Yale.

Yale Road east of Five Corners is Yale Road East and when it veers off at the highway and the southbound road becomes Vedder the road that veers becomes Yale Road West. Maybe from the highway to Five Corners it should be referred to as Yale Road Middle.

On the Sardis side, follow Vedder and you'll see Britton one way and Spruce the other, Watson one way and Promontory the other, and so on.

Now you're in Sardis or Vedder Crossing or just Vedder. At the end of Vedder the Chilliwack River becomes the Vedder River, the water of which becomes the Vedder Canal. That first change happens at the Vedder Bridge, a road from which heading east is called Chilliwack Lake Road. That heads to Chilliwack Lake and runs along the Chilliwack River. (Chilliwack River Road,
on the other hand, is nowhere near the Chilliwack River . . . well, it is near the Little Chilliwack River which isn¹t much more than a ditch.)

Then there is the Panorama subdivision in the Eastern Hillsides. The area, near Marble Hill Road, I thought was referred to simply as Marble Hill, but even if it was, definitely not anymore.

Another new(ish) area is Garrison Crossing, which was once CFB Chilliwack and is situated in Vedder Crossing, which is in Sardis, which is the south side of Chilliwack. That whole area is still claimed by some of the Soowahlie First Nations as their traditional land so they probably call it something else.

At least we can all agree that we live here in North America.

What's that you say?

Turtle Island?

pjh

• pauljhenderson1971.blogspot.com •