Quebec considers removing N-word from 11 place names

A stretch of the Gatineau River that has officially been called Nigger Rapids for decades could be renamed along with 10 other sites in Quebec whose names include the racial slur.

But theprovincial body that manages Quebec's place names says there has beenlittle public pressure to rename the sites.

The rapids are locatedin the municipality of Bouchetteabout 120 kilometres north of Ottawa. Theywere named inmemory of ablack couplewho drowned there in the early 1900s, saidJean-PierreLeBlanc,spokesman for the Quebec Toponymy Commission.

After decades ofbeing known by theirinformal name by the locals, the commission officially recognized the name in 1983.

"It was meant to describe the people who died,"LeBlanc said. "There was nopejorative connotation then as there is now."

LeBlancsaidthat noformal request by residentshas been madeto change the name of the rapids but that the commission is considering whether it should rename all 11 sites that include the racial slur.

Claire Hamel,who lives near the rapids,said the official name is not a source of controversy among locals.

"Nobody talks about this," she said. "It's the name, that's it. Like Bouchette, like Maniwaki, like Ottawa."

BouchetteMayorRjean Major told Radio-Canada he has nointention of asking the commission to change the name of the rapids.

More N-word names

Changing an official name isa lengthy process that requires public consultation,LeBlancsaid.

"These are names that date back a long time," he said.

"Some people want to keep the names. They say that it's a witness of the past. It shows the history of black people in Quebec and how it was at that time. Others say the names are no longer fit."

The commission has recognized sixplace namesthat include theN-wordin Englishand five that include the word ngre, which inFrench can mean both Negro and the N-word.

A hill 50 kilometres south of Montreal near the U.S. border contains the N-word in its name. It'sthe site where black slaves were buried from1794 until slavery was abolished in1833, according to the commission.

In Quebec'sLaurentides region, the commission has recognized three rapids along the Red River that have the N-word in their names,but itdoes not detail the origin of the names on its website.

The Niger River, near Sherbrooke, was officially spelled with two g'sbetween 1986 and 2006. It was named for the large presence of African-Americans along its banks in the early19thcentury, according to the commission. The river isbelieved to have been used by those fleeing slavery in the United States.

There's alsoLac du Ngre andRuisseau du Ngre in west Quebec,Rivire du Ngre near Drummondville,Le Buttereau-du-Ngre onles-de-la-Madeleine andLac Ti-Ngrenear Shawinigan.