Our community’s name Powell is in question, and the question of whether to keep it or not tears some of us apart, and some of us from each other.    But, from a slightly older perspective perhaps we have already changed that name.   The change happened gradually over many years.  We lost elders, and with them, their memories and experience, people left and people came here, and we didn’t even notice it as it slowly gradually happened.   The names of Cranberry, Wildwood, Westview, and Townsite aren’t in question.  Only Powell is questioned.

I’m from Cranberry.  Yes, I was born in PR in the old hospital that sat near the dam.   It’s gone now.  It was torn down in the ‘90s and as the years go by fewer people even remember it.  Back then, during the years I grew up, we used to go down to Powell River because the Post Office was down there, and the big Overwaitee store was there.   It was the commercial centre for the region.   We had a smaller Overwaitee in Cranberry, a gas station, and many other stores too, but we didn’t have banks.  They were all in Powell River too.  Westview had a business street, Marine Ave., and by the time I was old enough to remember, the Marine Ave. business district may actually have been little bigger than Cranberry’s, but we seldom went there because everything we needed was either in Cranberry or in the Townsite, which was Powell River to us then. 

In 1961 the PR Plaza was built, and suddenly, Westview became the go-to place for shopping. It had a Hudson’s Bay, a Safeway supermarket, and a lot of other shops.  Called Crossroads now, it was big shopping-wise in the ‘60s compared to anything we’d had before.   Years later the Town Centre Mall came along and over those years Westview took over as the main shopping and population centre.   

The change of the name to Powell River for all the villages, from Westview to Wildwood happened in 1955.    I remember a years-long complaint in Cranberry that our Christmas lights were put up along Marine Ave. in Westview.  Some used the word stolen. They were paid for by Cranberry ratepayers.   They didn’t belong to Westview.  There were hard feelings about that for maybe 10 years, but gradually those subsided.   Change is slow.  We slowly got used to the name Powell River for the whole of the district, and it was officially called that for many years; the Corp. of the District of PR.  But many of us retained our pride in community that did not relate primarily to PR.  I’m aware of many residents of Wildwood who feel that way currently, and there are probably as many in Cranberry.   I’m not sure about Westview.  Back when Westview was first being developed, it was mostly Townsite, Wildwood and Cranberryites who were moving there.   Some of us stayed put, and some like me who left years ago and came back still feel that pride in our origins in the villages we’re actually from.

There is no question that the PR Co. made an international name for itself that peaked in the ‘60s when with ten paper machines it was the single largest pulp and paper producer in the world, and later, Kathaumixw made us internationally renowned in the choral world.   Our community has always been very rich culturally, with music and the Patricia Theatre since the 1920’s and more recently with art.  We are renowned in competitive sports, now celebrated in our own Sports Hall of Fame.  We are a gateway to one of probably three of the finest and most beautiful marine destinations in the world.  We are apparently one of the most climate change resilient places in the world.   We have abundant fresh water.   We are a very lucky community in many ways.   And we have been a networked community, connected by many layers of relationships with each other since before my memory.    The not always kind rumour mill has always been far outweighed by the kindness of the grapevine here.   Through it, many of us have been helped out by neighbours when we were in times of need, large and small. 

The question in my mind is, was the umbrella name of the district ever really at the root of our pride more than our cultural and village identities, especially for those who’ve been around here for a while.    I’m honestly not sure about suburban mall-ridden Westview with its phenomenal views where I live now, but I know Townsite people are proud of living in the Townsite.   I think there is still a subtle tension between Cranberry and Wildwood as there has been as far back as I can remember.  And these names are not in question.   They relate to places to which many of us feel attached, a feeling as deep as our roots go.   How deep do they go?  

A recent visit I made with relatives to Ireland, land of my ancestors, gave me opportunity to reconnect with those deep roots.  The Irish are indigenous in that land.   It felt very good to be there, like it feels to me to be here where I was born, where I live and where I hope to spend the rest of my life.    Yes, now I live in Westview, but I’m from Cranberry where my half Irish mother loved to garden and listen to opera at high volume on CBC, Sat. afternoon.   These are things that root us to this place we love.

So, what of this name, Powell, the umbrella name of our district?   Yes, there is pride connected to that name and that pride will not go away anytime soon, but the details will fade into history just as the memory of Cranberry’s Christmas lights being given to Marine Ave. has faded.   And the pride in who we are as a community and where we are planted will remain and grow through coming years because we deserve to be proud.    We have challenges and problems now and we will tackle them as we always have done, and we will have success because we work together as a community as we always have done for as long as any of us can remember.   That is our heritage.  That is part of our identity.   

Our umbrella name, Powell, is associated with some pretty terrible outcomes over the past century or more for our indigenous neighbours.   We can feel their grief, and honour that original ask, which was implicitly, can we help with it?    I am paraphrasing, and I’m ignoring certain ways that has been emphasized, and felt deeply here in my community.   Shame does no good, it simply confuses and confounds the way forward.   What is the way forward for us?   How do we proceed with the pride I feel, that I know is in our community heart?   How do we rejoin with our neighbours in this pride, both within our community here, and with our friends/neighbours of Tla’amin Nation?   How do we work together toward prosperity for us all? 

I think we can answer these questions.    Who are we really?   What would we call ourselves if not after a man who never lived here?    What name would suit us that represents who we are?    Can we as a community create it anew?   None of the names of the places we live are in question.  What used to be Powell River to me, isn’t any more.  It’s Townsite now.    I’m from Cranberry of Irish ancestry.    I’m deeply proud of that.   I will never let that go.   And I’m deeply grateful to live here.    Let us work together now to define who we are and name ourselves together to represent the great good together we know we are here.    

written on my mom’s birthday, June 9. RIP Eileen M Southcott, nee Moore