COGNA 2016: GREAT NAMES IN THE GREAT BASIN

Program

Tuesday, May 3rd

10:00am – 5:00pm:Registration, packet pickup

3:00pm – 5:00pm: COGNA Business Meeting (State Names Authority Members & Voting Members)

6:00pm – 9:00pm: Opening reception; Welcome (Mr. Furr -COGNA & Mr. Kintop – NBGN), & Housekeeping

7:00pm: Evening lecture, Discover Nevada - Whimsical Names and Uplifting Places; Jack Hursh; Cartographic Technician, Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology, Mackay School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, College of Science, University of Nevada.

Wednesday, May 4th

8:00am – 10:30am: Registration, packet pickup

8:30am – 10:00am: State Names Authorities Reports

10:00-10:30am –  BREAK

10:30am – 11:30am: State Names Authorities Reports continued

11:30am – Noon: The Significance of Tribal Names in the Eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains and Western Great Basin; Dean Tonenna, Kootzatukadu Numa Botanist /Ethnobotanist, Bureau of Land Management

Noon – 1:30pm: Lunch on your own

1:30pm – 2:00pm: GLO Plats: Learning About a Great Online Resource; Bob Stewart, Nevada State Board on Geographic Names, U.S. Bureau of Land Management

2:00pm – 2:30pm: Noxious Weed (Names) of Nevada; Jack Hursh, Cartographer, Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology

2:30 – 3:00pm: The Nevada State Board on Geographic Names, a state’s commitment; Linda Newman, Past Chair, Nevada State Board on Geographic Names 

3:00pm – 3:30pm: BREAK

3:30pm – 5:00pm: Nevada State Board on Geographic Names Meeting

6:00-9:00pm: Optional Evening Activity: Dinner and lecture; Enjoy a 7-course dinner at Louis’ Basque Corner.  Louis’ Basque Corner has operated for almost 50 years in an historic building in Reno, now more than a century old.

Lecture: by Dr. Xabier Irujo from the Center for Basque Studies at the University of Nevada Reno.

Cost: $35 per person (tax and tip included) for dinner.

Transportation:  Pickup from Peppermill at 6pm by Nevada Board of Geographic Names members – private vehicle transportation.  City bus also available.

Thursday, May 5th

8:00am – 10:30am: Registration, packet pickup

8:30am – 10:00am: Meeting, U.S. Board on Geographic Names – Domestic Names Committee

10:00-10:30am:  BREAK

10:30am – Noon: U.S. Board on Geographic Names – Domestic Names Committee (Meeting cont’d)

Noon – 1:30pm: Lunch on your own

1:30pm – 2:00pm: Re-Naming North America's Highest Peak: The Denali Decision; Jon Campbell, USGS, Office of Communication

2:00pm – 3:00:  State-Federal Roundtable

3:00pm – 3:30pm: BREAK

3:30pm- 5:00pm: Continue, The State-Federal Roundtable / The BGN Doctor is in the House; Questions for the USBGN staff

5:30 – 7:00pm: Walking Tour Optional Evening Activity:  Historic Reno with Barrie Lynn.

Cost: FREE.

Transportation:Pickup from Peppermill at 5:00pm by Nevada Board of Geographic Names members – private vehicle transportation.  City bus also available.

Friday, May 6th

8:00am – 8:30am: Registration and Packet pickup

8:30am – 10:00am:  Čaw Pawá Láakni, They Are Not Forgotten: A Sahaptian Place Names Atlas of the Cayuse, Umatilla, and Walla Walla; Roberta Conner, Director, Tamástslikt Cultural Institute, Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, Teara Farrow Ferman, Manager, Cultural Resource Protection Program, Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (tentative), & Dr. Jennifer Karson Engum, Ethnographer & Cultural Anthropologist, Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation

10:00am – 10:30am: BREAK

10:30am – 11:00am: Some practical applications of communication theory; Grant Smith, Eastern Washington University

11:00am – 11:30am:  Origins of native American stream generics; Edward Callary, Northern Illinois University, Emeritus

11:30am – Noon: USGS National Geospatial Program: Handling Provisional Geographic Names in the National Hydrography Dataset, Carol Ostergren, USGS, National Geospatial Program

Noon – 1:30pm: Lunch on your own

1:30pm – 2:00pm: The Geographic Names Information System: Under the Hood and by the Numbers, Douglas Caldwell, Geospatial Research Laboratory, Engineer Research and Development Center, US Army Corps of Engineers

2:00pm – 2:30pm: Traditional Alaska Native Names Pilot Project; Robert Francis, USDA, U.S. Forest Service

2:30pm – 3:00pm: Geographic Place Names of Alaska That Might Be Politically Incorrect;Doug Vandegraft, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management

3:00pm – 3:30pm: BREAK

3:30pm – 4:15pm: Landform Collection in GNIS;Maria McCormick, US Geological Survey-NGTOC

4:15pm – 4:45pm:  Aboriginal naming as a key objective of the Geographical Names Board of Canada’s Strategic Plan, 2015-2020; Heather Ross, Geographical Names Board of Canada (GNBC) Secretariat, Natural Resources Canada

4:45pm – 5:00pm: Wrap-up

6:00pm-9:00pm: Included in Registration, Closing Social with Keynote Speaker: Revisiting Lake Tahoe, Peter Goin, University of Nevada

Saturday, May7th

7:30am – 5:30pm: Optional tour “Tour of the Historic and Scenic Western Nevada.”

Join us for a day traveling through the amazing sights and history of Western Nevada. Trip begins at the Peppermill in Reno at 7:30am, and includes travel through and stops in Washoe Valley, Carson City, Lake Tahoe, Genoa, and Virginia City, and will conclude at the Peppermill at 5:30pm.  Hosted and narrated by Nevada Board of Geographic Names members.

Limited seating – first come/first served in reservations.

Additional fee: $50 per person.  Includes bus, and water throughout the day. 

 

 

ABSTRACTS

GLO Plats: Learning About A Great Online Resource

Bob Stewart, Nevada State Board on Geographic Names, U.S. Bureau of Land Management

Bob Stewart, as a newspaperman in rural Nevada, continuing through employment with the State, and then the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, needed to understand the General Land Office township surveys. He worked in the office and in the field with government surveyors. In also pursuing an interest in history, he came to understand how the plats and notes provide important snapshots of settlement west of the 13 original colonies.

How to understand the plats of original survey and the field notes. He will try to address how they can help boards in their work. They are just now coming to the attention of historical researchers. Too often the surveyors did not mention the names of land features, but they do name trails, roads and streams, and householders are named. How to understand the plats, and especially the dating system and the fact that it is a moment in time survey. Also the warning about the Benson Syndicate plats.

Noxious Weed (Names) of Nevada

Jack Hursh, Cartographer, Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology

Traditional and official place names can change due to the errant introduction of a typographical error on a map or in an article.  These are then perpetuated in colloquial usage, articles, and eventually maps.  These unwanted names even end up being added as variant names in the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS). For instance, Snowflower Mountain, named by the Nevada State Board of Geographic Names and approved by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names in 1990, has morphed to reflect the name of a local weed, and the mistakenly introduced Sunflower Mountain has taken root.

                  Many other breeds of “noxious weeds” in names were introduced into Nevada’s landscape, not by typo, but by the “newcomer effect.”  Careless interpretation or errant reference results in new names and improper pronunciation.  Locally, it is common to hear someone speaking of a weekend at Pyramid Lake and observing the “Pinnacles.”  They are referring to a set of tufa formations on the north end of Pyramid Lake that are officially named and properly called by “real” Nevadans as “The Needle Rocks.”  Seasonal and now dry lakes, misspelled names, and recent colloquial names are but a few of the issues the Nevada State Board on Geographic Names has dealt with, and will likely continue to as time passes.   

                  This lecture is to illustrate a variety of geographical noxious weeds: locations, sites, and formations that now trouble Nevadans (and the NSBGN), and highlight a few that have made their way to published maps and the GNIS database.

The Significance of Tribal Names in the Eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains and Western Great Basin

Dean Tonenna, Kootzatukadu Numa, Botanist /Ethnobotanist, Bureau of Land Management

Tribal names within the Eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains and Western Great Basin are significant in several ways.  Tribal naming conventions provide insight into how a people group view their surroundings, themselves and their place within the environment; over the course of thousands of years.  Tribal names can provide important natural history information about a location that may not be known to others and help us better understand the history or natural processes of the area.  Tribal names delineate geographic homelands where people lived intimately with their surroundings.  As Tribes within the Eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains-Western Great Basin region seek to revitalize their culture, they recognize the importance of Tribal youth in learning, preserving and enhancing Tribal values and perspectives.  Tribal names provide Tribal youth with a sense of place and belonging and enable youth to take pride in their culture not only as a unique inheritance but also as a lifeway that continues into the future as Tribal members of today and tomorrow continue to use their language to name the world around them.  This presentation will provide a broad view of how the Numa People (Northern Paiute) named areas within their homeland and will focus on how one Numa group, the Koozatukadu Numa of the Mono Lake and Yosemite region, are using Tribal knowledge, archives and GIS to document place names within their homeland.

The Nevada State Board on Geographic Names, a state’s commitment

Linda Newman, Past Chair, Nevada State Board on Geographic Names

This paper is an overview of the history of the Nevada State Board on Geographic Names [NSBGN] now in its 31^st year, its creation, its mandate, its membership, its efforts, its challenges and its accomplishments.

Founded by NV State Legislative action in 1985, the NSBGN has operated continuously to review proposals of geographic names, forward these proposals on to the US Board after due consideration including public hearings and inquiry of relevant entities; and to respond to questions from the public, from the press and any others.

Membership of the NV Board consists of voting representatives and alternates from  the Nevada Bureau of Mines & Geology, the University of Nevada, Reno and Las Vegas, the NV State Library, the State Dept. of Transportation, the State Dept. of Conservation and Natural Resources, the Nevada Historical Society , the US Bureau of Land Management, the US Forest  Service, and the Inter-tribal Council of Nevada, and now welcomes participation from the US National Park Service and, as always, any interested individuals and organizations.

Over 3 decades, the NV Board has considered over 400 naming proposals, most without undue difficulty, but several were complex and a challenge, I could say even painful.  But all were part of our commitment to geographic names in Nevada.

Re-Naming North America's Highest Peak: The Denali Decision

Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell announced on August 30, 2015, that the highest mountain in the United States and North America, formerly known as Mount McKinley, would officially be given the traditional Native name Denali. This presentation will address key questions that surround the decision: Why and when was the mountain named McKinley? Why hadn't the name previously been changed by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names? Why change the name now? How does the Secretary have such authority and what was the impact of her decision? What was the reaction to the name change in Alaska, in Ohio, and across the United States?

Čaw Pawá Láakni, They Are Not Forgotten:  A Sahaptian Place Names Atlas

of the Cayuse, Umatilla, and Walla Walla

Speakers:  Roberta Conner, Director, Tamástslikt Cultural Institute, Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, Teara Farrow Ferman, Manager, Cultural Resource Protection Program, Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (tentative), Dr. Jennifer Karson Engum, Ethnographer & Cultural Anthropologist, Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation

For millennia, indigenous peoples of the mid-Columbia River Plateau, who lived close to the land and derived all sustenance from nature, identified their bands, villages, waterways, trails and geographic areas by names in their native tongues.  The cultural conventions for Plateau place names are dramatically different from modern Euro-American practices.  This panel will share the process by which their project repatriated indigenous knowledge that led to the publishing of the atlas and the development of a data base that has informed their proposals to restore native place names to their Eastern Oregon and Southeast Washington homeland.

Some practical applications of communication theory

Grant Smith, Eastern Washington University

The purpose of this paper is to show how communication theory confirms policies and procedures of the USBGN. In terms of semiotic theory, names are signs that may evoke iconic, indexical, or symbolic interpretations. Their most common interpretation, by far, is indexical, which is the designation of a feature in an assumed one-to-one correspondence between the name and the feature. Thus, the indexical function of names is totally consistent with and helps to justify the USBGN policy of one, and only one, official name for each feature. However, problems sometimes arise when choices need to be made between symbolic interpretations. That is to say, people argue over which name to use because names can be interpreted as referring to two or more things at the same time, i.e., to a geographic feature (Reno) and to something else in another context (Civil War general). Specific examples will show how symbolic interpretations arise from two or more indexical interpretations. I will define geographic features as immediate referents and the possible referents of a name in other contexts as secondary referents. Arguments over which name to use as an immediate referent always center on which secondary referent has preferred attributes to associate with the immediate referent. The names themselves are arbitrary signs, and all references are acts of interpretations. Thus, the preferences for different secondary referents reflect no more than different interpretations, and the arbitrary nature of symbolic meaning confirms the utility of the USBGN policy of dominant local usage.

Origins of native American stream generics

Edward Callary, Northern Illinois University, Emeritus

Stream generics offer insights into many aspects of culture. In the 17th century Britain had several hundred viable stream generics, most of which, e.g., Beck, Drill, Strand, Grip never made it to America or found only poetically.  Even the use of so widespread a generic as Brook soon petered out on this side of the Atlantic. But compensating for the loss of the great majority of British generics an interesting number of homegrown generics arose. I will trace the origins and development of Fork, Run, Branch, Prong, and several other as they made their way from common nouns to true generics, concentrating on time depth, geographical origin and spatial distribution, hoping to contribute to a discussion of why, when, and where generics develop.

USGS National Geospatial Program: Handling Provisional Geographic Names in the National Hydrography Dataset

Presenter, Carol Ostergren:  Authors; Carol Ostergren, Drew Decker, Hank Nelson, and Joel Osuna

US Geological Survey, Office of the Pacific Regional Director

In response to states’ need to both use the National Hydrography Dataset (NHD) and to have local and provisional water body names available, the USGS National Geospatial Program developed a tool that functions alongside the NHD editing tool. The tool allows data stewards to add a provisional (new) or variant (additional) name to a water feature contained in the NHD. State and local business processes built on a water framework can more efficiently be managed with the incorporation of both formal and provisional names contained within the same database. The NHD currently only contains official names approved by the US Board on Geographic Names. At present, the provisional name tool will capture the local name, the steward name and organization, the source of the provisional name, and assign it to the appropriate feature(s) in the spatial database. Although the related table resulting from the provisional name tool will not initially be available for download along with the NHD data, the collection of the new (provisional) name information can be then channeled into the US Board on Geographic Names formal naming process. Two states, California and Idaho, currently are testing and using the provisional names tool. This presentation will provide a look at those preliminary efforts and results.

Traditional Alaska Native Names Pilot Project

Robert Frances, USDA, US Forest Service, Alaska

Project:  The U.S. Board of Geographic Names (BGN) and the Forest Service (FS) Alaska Region are undertaking a pilot program to collect traditional native place names associated with unnamed features within national forest system lands in coordination with Tribal Partners in Alaska.

Process:  The pilot procedure will capture traditional native names not included in the initial collection of names comprised in the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS).  Today we have native place name books, maps, and studies documenting historic use of place names which were not available during the previous collection phases.

Working together with tribal groups, the FS will review and evaluate traditional place names in accordance with BGN policy.  The FS will then submit a recommendation in list format to the BGN.  The BGN Staff will review the recommended names and enter them into GNIS.  These BGN recognized names may be used on federal maps and publications, including electronic maps.

This process will not require the names to go through the Alaska Historic Commission (Alaska Geographic Names Board) or the BGN for decisions on individual names.  However, we will work with the State Board with their concerns and keep them informed throughout the process.  Changes to existing names are not part of this pilot program and will require normal name process and review.

Names on the landscape are important to Tribes of Alaska and their heritage.  They should not be lost but preserved and shared so all can gain an appreciation of the historic ties and stories evoked by the native names on the landscape.

Geographic Place Names of Alaska That Might Be Politically Incorrect

Douglas L. Vandegraft

Bureau of Ocean Energy Management

Although the purchase of Alaska by the U.S. occurred in 1867, accurate maps made by the Army and Navy didn’t appear until the 1890’s.  While many native Alaskan names were retained and used on these maps, other geographic features were named by men who were predominantly new to the territory.  Many of these names reflected the admiration (and lack) of women, the presence of natives and other ethnic groups.  The military build-up of Alaska during World War II saw the production of new maps by the military and the U.S. Geological Survey.  These federal maps, many of which are still in circulation today, included many new names for features, some of which would be considered derogatory today by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, and interpreted as politically incorrect by others.  The author has documented over 70 geographic politically incorrect names that still appear on federal maps of Alaska.

 

The Geographic Names Information System: Under the Hood and by the Numbers

Douglas Caldwell

Geospatial Research Laboratory, Engineer Research and Development Center, US Army Corps of Engineers

The Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) is the repository of domestic geographic names that are official for use by the Federal Government. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Board on Geographic Names (BGN) jointly developed the GNIS, which contains names that are approved by Domestic Names Committee (DNC) decisions and by policy.

Research and initial collection of data in the GNIS began in 1968, followed by a pilot project in 1976, with the initial population of the database from 1978-1981. At the end of Fiscal Year 2015, the GNIS contained 2,732,455 names associated with 2,273,968 features.

This presentation reviews the GNIS as a whole to understand the broad trends and patterns. Specific attention will be paid to Official Names and Variant Names. Official names are discussed in “Principle V: One Name for One Geographic Entity” in the DNC’s Principles, Policies, and Procedures (PPP), while Variant Names are the subject of “Policy VIII: Use of Variant Names.” The concept of Black Holes, or precise geographic locations with multiple names, will be introduced, including a summary of the infamous, fictional Null Island, located at 0o longitude and 0o latitude in the Gulf of Guinea off the west coast of Africa. Geographic name length will be reviewed in the context of the DNC’s PPP “Policy IX: Long names” and the presentation will conclude with an analysis of common and duplicate names, as relates to “Policy VI: Name duplication.”

Based on the publicly accessible data from the GNIS, this brief analysis sheds light on the database and how it both follows and diverges from the guidance in the PPP.

Landform Collection in GNIS
Maria McCormick
US Geological Survey-NGTOC
The USGS’ National Geospatial Technical Operations Center, in maintaining the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS), is creating a landform polygon dataset with ties to GNIS name records. This new dataset of landform polygons will be used to increase the quality of GNIS data and provide users with a large-scale, nationally-consistent dataset to aid in cartographic representations or other applications. The polygons represent the general extent of all named landforms in GNIS. In addition to providing the spatial representations in GNIS, the polygons will be used in many USGS products such as USTopo maps and mapping applications in The National Map. This presentation will provide background into the development and use of the web-based tool for landform polygon collection.

Aboriginal naming as a key objective of the Geographical Names Board of Canada’s Strategic Plan, 2015-2020
Heather Ross, Geographical Names Board of Canada (GNBC) Secretariat, Natural Resources Canada

  
The Geographical Names Board of Canada (GNBC) has adopted a new Strategic Plan outlining the focus of its work, and its top priorities, from 2015 to 2020.  One of the key objectives of the Plan is to “Improve Aboriginal Naming Policy, partnership and outreach”.  Recognition and use of traditional Aboriginal names help to preserve and strengthen Indigenous languages and cultures.  Several working groups have been formed to implement this objective, and a multi-pronged approach is being taken.  Efforts are being made to support and promote Aboriginal naming, and to build Aboriginal capacity for collecting traditional names, origins, and associated stories.  Among the projects underway are a survey on Aboriginal naming in each province and territory, production of a thematic map of Canada showcasing Aboriginal names, and a project to train First Nations youth in toponymy and GIS.   The Canadian Geographical Names Data Base is also being enhanced to enable greater interoperability and the use of special characters, as well as the incorporation of standards for Aboriginal toponymic data.