Gatineau, Kitigan Zibi team up to find new name for Rue Amherst

As a first step in reconciliation efforts with Indigenous people, Gatineau announced it was starting a process to rename controversial roadways in its territory.

The first street affected is Amherst Street in the Hull sector, which will be renamed in 2023.

In a release, the city said it would launch a joint working committee with the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg First Nation to determine a new name.

The street is one of several in Canada named after Jeffery Amherst, an 18th century general prominent in the Seven Years War between England and France.

Amherst’s legacy has been tainted by revelations that he advocated the use of smallpox blankets to kill Indigenous peoples.

In 2019, the city of Montreal removed Amherst’s name from a street, renaming it Atateken Street, from the Mohawk word for “brotherhood.”

“We are very pleased that (Gatineau) has embarked on the path of reconciliation and is moving away from the Amherst name,” Frankie Cote, band council member of the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg First Nation, said in a release.

“We encourage all citizens to educate themselves on why the names and statues of people like Jeffery Amherst, John A. Macdonald and Hector Louis Langevin are being removed across the country.”

Cote says the new name for the street will be in the Anishinabeg language.

Gatineau first announced its intention to rename the street in 2021.

“Although we are going to remove the Amherst Street name, we cannot ease the past,” Mayor France Bélisle said on Twitter.

Belisle says the new name will pay tribute to the Aboriginal heritage of the territory.

Bélisle noted in a release that the city’s toponymy committee will from now on work to include more Aboriginal place names.

The working committee will hold several meetings to come up with three proposed names, with particular participation by the nation;s elders.