təm kʷaθ nan (Namesake)

Review By Shurli Makmillen

June 16, 2026

BC Studies no. 229 Spring 2026  | p. 143-145

In Canada, as elsewhere, we are noticing a resurgence of Indigenous place names to counter colonial names that typically pay tribute to high-status Europeans. This can be straightforward – for example, few readers would even bother to remember Haida Gwaii as the “Queen Charlotte Islands,” and most recently Queen Charlotte village adopted the Haida name Daajing Giids. təm kʷaθ nan (Namesake) sheds light on the behind-the-scenes of such processes as they are playing out in Powell River, as the city and the Tla’amin First Nation engage in a joint working group to educate and engage city residents, address a disturbing colonial legacy, and propose a name change to no longer venerate BC’s first superintendent of Indian Affairs and the city’s namesake, Israel Wood Powell. 

The film illustrates that reconciliation in Canada cannot remain a merely symbolic gesture; it needs to involve truth telling from First Nation members about the deep harms resulting from the policies and practices of colonial figures like Powell. It also needs to involve the recognition of privilege and a willingness to “unlearn” that privilege on the part of non-Indigenous peoples. Both of these aspects are well represented in the film. Although a new name has not been officially proposed, the Tla’amin recall the original name for their settlement at the mouth of the river as Tiskʷət.

This collaboration of Tla’amin and ally filmmakers is a stunning blend of cinematography, oral history, animated storytelling, archival photographs and film footage, and archaeological research. The inspired soundscape of the film deserves special mention, including recent Tla’amin live performances and compositions, narrations of lore and placename meanings, and an evocative 1920 song recording of Elder Bob George, discovered recently by Tla’amin Nation cultural heritage manager Kespahl (Drew Blaney).

The film’s first focus is on Tla’amin lands, seas, and cultural practices, and the significance of the various place names. Names and naming – of places and persons – are central to Tla’amin history, land use, and the language itself. Then comes the colonial history, which includes the devastating 60–95 percent loss of population in the space of twenty-one days due to the 1862 smallpox epidemic; the illegal selling of Tla’amin lands in 1873 upon which the current town is built; and the more recent rise and fall (1912–2021) of the pulp and paper mill, the economic engine of non-Indigenous settlement and prosperity in Powell River. The now retired mill sits on the mouth of the river where archeological evidence reveals generations of Tla’amin use dating back 12,000 years. This substantiates Tla’amin oral history of the site as crucial to food gathering (once recorded as the second largest salmon run in the world) and to trading and relationships for First Nations along the coast.

The rest of the film details a more recent history of the Tla’amin building a relationship with the city of Powell River – its people and its civic institutions – including the earlier introduction of the name Qathet for the wider region in 2018, formerly known as the Powell River Regional District. The collaborative name-change working group came up with eleven recommendations, ten of which structure the process of learning and cultural sharing and the eleventh to finally decide on a new name for the town. The resultant narrative arc of the film, then, first traces the inspired and inspiring revival and recognition that gave rise to the working group in the first place – a function of the Tla’amin’s increasingly visible and audible presence in Powell River after decades of limited to no interaction since colonization, which only intensifies the disappointment in the backlash against the name change that follows, a backlash unfortunately caught up in a groundswell of residential school denialism.

To put the film in a larger context, Article 13.1 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) includes: “the right to…retain their own names for communities, places and persons.” UNDRIP is aspirational and non-binding, and although Canada’s Bill C-91, An Act Respecting Indigenous Languages, does support funding for Indigenous language revitalization, it does not explicitly address place names. There have been arguments made in Canada that it should. In the meantime, təm kʷaθ nan serves as a cautionary tale about how a movement to change a place name to an original, Indigenous name – one that happened without conflict in the same community less than a decade before with the adoption of Qathet – can be undermined in our current climate of divisive and polarized discourses.

However, with its promise of “a new story to tell,” təm kʷaθ nan also serves as an inspiration and a model for how to structure a process based on consensus and collaboration – a reason to raise our hands in thanks to the Tla’amin and their allies who worked so hard and with so much hope. At this point, the name-change process is on hiatus, and none of the recommendations have been implemented. But 120 acres of the former village site at Tiskʷət were returned to Tla’amin in a settlement agreement, and there are current plans to build housing units there. As for the future, in the words of one of the committee members, “the name change will happen sometime” and, to quote another, “it will be beautiful.” təm kʷaθ nan is available for community screenings by request.