The Land That Talks: A multimedia tour of Algonquin place names.

Timiskaming First Nation, QC, March
__, 2012.- The Algonquin Nation Secretariat has launched a website dedicated to
rediscover Algonquin place names that have disappeared from maps that are in
the English and French languages. 

Algonquin
place names tell stories. These stories connect the Algonquin people to the
land and to the cultural identity of where we live. Place names, or toponymy is
an important building block of Aboriginal story telling, where cultural
traditions are passed between one generation and the next. Between 1910 and the
1930’s, Algonquin place names disappeared from maps for many different
reasons.  Some were replaced simply
because they were to hard to pronounce in the Algonquin language. The goal of the project is to bring these stories
back, to map Algonquin toponyms before they are lost forever. 

The Algonquin Nation research teams from Timiskaming
and Wolf Lake First Nation with financial contribution from the Ministère de la Culture, des Communications
et de la Condition
Féminine du Québec have completed working on a web based
project to compile and showcase Algonquin place names to maps.  It is with great pleasure to introduce this
web based project to experience a look at First Nations story telling of
land use and occupancy.  The site
includes recorded interviews and pictures. 
The interviews about place names were conducted for the Timiskaming and
Wolf Lake First Nations traditional territories. This is a living website and map and not all Algonquin
place names are represented here. The extent of the map does not suggest the
limits of Algonquin Rights and Interests. 

To
visit the site go to www.algonquinnation.ca/toponym