Peggy Revell
The correction of a longstanding historical error is underway as Stanjikoming First Nation is in the process of officially changing its name to Mitaanjigamiing First Nation.
“That’s what the people before called it. I imagine that’s what they’d want it called now,” said elder Fred Major, who has been pushing for the name to be changed for many years.
Renaming Stanjikoming to Mitaanjigamiing is part of “reclaiming our identity,” said Chief Janice Henderson.
The band council already has approved the change, which has been passed along to Indian and Northern Affairs Canada for confirmation, she noted.
The band also has begun the process of changing things such as letterhead and its website, she added, although they still will be legally known as Stanjikoming until approval is given by INAC.
The name change also falls under the recently-elected council’s focus on its governance process, Chief Henderson noted—something they will continue to work on and seek funding for.
Mitaanjigamiing, like many other First Nation communities, have seen their names changed from their original meaning, Major said.
“When INAC came here to see Indian people about the name, [First Nations] were asked ‘What are you going to call your reserve?’” he noted, explaining how the band’s name was first altered following the signing of the Paypom treaty in 1873.
While the name Mitaanjigamiing was given, the INAC agents didn’t understand what had been said and instead wrote down “Stangecoming,” Major said, which later was changed to Stanjikoming.
“When INAC left in the afternoon, Mitaanjigamiing was no more,” he remarked.
“So we lived in a place without a name for over a 100 years,” Major added, explaining that Stanjikoming isn’t actually a word or phrase in Ojibwe.
“It’s a word but it has no meaning,” he stressed. “That’s not a name—Stanjikoming.”
The name Mitaanjigamiing, on the other hand, means “where shallow water runs in to deep water.”
It stemmed from the position between Haymarsh Point and South Island, which used to be the only location where the shallow waters of Stanjikoming Bay would meet with the rest of Rainy Lake, Major noted—something that changed when the dams were put in place, causing the water levels to rise in both Rainy Lake and Stanjikoming Bay.
He also added this rise in water levels also affected the growing of wild rice, duck hunting, and spring trapping, and left underwater many of the sand beaches where First Nations people would land their birchbark canoes.
“[There was] only one entrance and now after the dam there are three entrances,” Major said, noting that before the dams, both the South and North Island were connected to each other and to the mainland.
A ceremony and feast to celebrate the name change from Stanjikoming to Mitaanjigamiing has been scheduled as part of Treaty Day this week, Chief Henderson added.
