284 THE ADVOCATE
VOL. 80 PART 2 MARCH 2022
Visit the BC Geographical Names
database at <apps.gov.bc.ca/pub/
bcgnws/> for innumerable more
fun facts regarding geographical
names in our province and related
etymological questions. There are
seven official names containing
“Tod” and ten containing “Todd”.
There is a “Sun Peaks”, but that is
the associated resort municipality,
not the mountain.
In a similar vein, there is no
such geographic location as
“Cypress Mountain” in the vicinity
of Vancouver. There is a Cypress
Provincial Park, centred on
Cypress Bowl at the head of
Cypress Creek, between Black
Mountain, Mount Strachan (pronounced,
approximately, “Struan”)
and Hollyburn Mountain. The ski
area that operates there seems
pleased to call itself Cypress
“Mountain”, notwithstanding the
non-existence of such a thing.
There may be good reason for
judicious renaming of some geographic
features in British Columbia,
names that are offensive being
a prime example. In some cases, a
second name, that traditionally
used by the local First People,
might be added to the settler/colonial
name. There seems no reason
that something cannot have two
names, as shown by the signs on
the Sea-to-Sky (formerly Seaview)
Highway. But, as Gilbert and Sullivan
observed in The Mikado, “I
have a little list, they never will be
missed”. The practice of renaming
features, particularly for commercial
or political reasons, need not
be encouraged.
Anders I. Ourom
Vancouver
Dear Editor,
Re: “From Our Back Pages”
(2022) 80 Advocate 135, reprinting
Richard H. Vogel, Q.C.,
“A Report from Your Correspon-
dent in London: Inside the Con-
stitutional Uproar 1980–82”
(2012) 70 Advocate 27
I was delighted to read this article
you again published, as I had
not come across it before. The
political and bureaucratic intrigue
that occurred in Westminster at the
time of the so-called patriation of
our Constitution back in the 1980–
81 period that Mr. Vogel details
makes for such fascinating reading.
It sheds some real light on what
There is a Cypress Peak, on the
Squamish-Cheakamus divide about
70 km N of Vancouver, and about
15 geographic locations in British
Columbia with the word “Cypress”
in their names. Cypresses are after
all quite nice trees, not to be confused
with the cy-près doctrine.