Vancouver’s Trutch Street to officially change to šxʷməθkʷəy̓əmasəm – BC

Vancouver City Council is set to vote on Tuesday on adopting a new Musqueam name for Trutch Street in Kitsilano.

The street is named after Joseph Trutch, B.C.’s first lieutenant-governor whose policies inflicted harm on First Nations people.

City councillors asked the Musqueam Indian Band to choose a replacement after voting to rename the street in 2021.

The Nation gifted the name šxʷməθkʷəy̓əmasəm, which is Musqueamview in the Musqueam Indian Band’s hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ language.

Trutch Street runs between 18th and 1st Avenues on the city’s west side in the unceded traditional territories of the Musqueam people.

Trutch, who arrived in the province in 1859 and became B.C.’s chief commissioner of land and works in the 1860s, was considered an extreme racist.

According to the Musqueam Indian Band, Trutch was openly hostile to First Nations, denied the existence of Aboriginal rights, and did not recognize previously established Indian Reserves, resulting in reserves shrinking throughout the province.

The Musqueamview name will debut on the street on June 20.

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