The What Sea?

Last week, the US Board on Geographic Names followed the Washington State Board on Geographic Names and the Geographical Names Board of Canada (who knew there were so many agencies dedicated to geographic names?) in approving the label “Salish Sea” to the body of water formed from the collection of the Strait of Georgia, Puget Sound, and the Strait of Juan de Fuca in the US and Canada. The decision represents a victory for proponents of the monicker, who have been pushing for the adoption with varying degrees of intensity since the 1980s.

The idea originated with former Western Washington University professor Bert Webber, who coined the name with a reference to the dominant language family in use by the Coastal tribes who populated the waters when Europeans began to show up, for the purpose of raising awareness of the fact that all the waters involved shared a contiguous ecosystem despite their diverse names. It seems, in retrospect, at once a masterful coinage to attract support of liberals and the ecologically-minded and an inevitable lightning rod for the fire of conservatives and nationalists.

And so it proved, particularly during the past few years when the name’s stock had been rising and its likelihood of adoption becoming more real. Canadians portrayed it as a US effort to erase the border (though Webber is, by birth, Canadian himself); surprisingly, some ecologists objected that it would dilute their efforts to achieve better awareness of Puget Sound as an ecosystem… a selfish statement that I would think would cause even more concerns for the Canadians than worries about what is already a pretty nominal border, but I suppose that just proves that conflict makes for strange bedfellows.

At any rate, now that it is more or less decided (the province of British Columbia still has a say, but since the border hasn’t actually been erased yet, I don’t see how they can tell us what we can or can’t call it from down here), I am not sure it really makes any difference for opponents. They can keep referring to the various constituent bodies of water by their original names as long as they please.

For myself, it allays a certain degree of guilt I have found in using the name during its years in the wilderness. Now that it’s official, I don’t have to feel like a wimpy liberal treehugger when I use the term. The truth is, I have kind of always liked the sound of it, really, ahistorical though it may be. And whatever your other objections, it’s hard to argue that the name isn’t useful. I’ve struggled for years to come up with some easy way to refer to the overall body of water we typically find ourselves sailing in here. It’s certainly not restricted by existing geographic boundaries, and it’s hellish inconvenient to say “Puget Sound, Strait of Juan de Fuca, and Strait of Georgia” whenever referring to it. I had come up with “lower Inside Passage” but that has considerable ambiguity even among local sailors, and doesn’t mean much of anything to anyone else.

I suppose we should consider ourselves lucky that the various boards on names didn’t simply auction the naming rights away as has been discussed with the state ferry system. Paul Allen might have picked them up and then who knows what we would have ended up with? Although “The Vulcan Sea” has a certain appeal to the sci-fi fan in me.