Wednesday, December 15, 1909. Cherry blossoms and The Wyoming.

1909  The six masted schooner Wyoming, the largest wooden schooner ever built, launched in Bath, Maine.  The huge schooner was the last one launched on the East Coast of the United States.

The Kaga Maru departed Yokohama with 2,000 cherry blossom trees for the U.S.

The National Geographic Society acknowledged Robert E. Peary as the first to reach the North Pole.

Last edition:

Sunday, December 13, 1909. Royal going ons.

Labels: 1900s, 1909, Belgium, Marriage, Monarchy, The relationship between men and women

Saturday, February 26, 1944. „Nie” dla linii Curzona

The Polish Government in Exile rejected the Curzon Line as Poland's eastern border. 

While their resistance to the border being moved is admirable, and had to be expected, it was of course doomed.

The Soviets launched a nighttime 600 bomber raid on Helsinki.  Finnish air defenses prove ineffectual, which was typical for any nighttime raid, and only three Soviet Air Force planes are lost.  

The Red Army captured Porkhov.

The French Resistance attack the SOMUA armor plate works at Lyons, but their explosives fail to detonate.

Leigh Light fitted to a Royal Air Force Coastal Command Liberator, February 26, 1944.

The U-91 was sunk by the Royal Navy.

The United States Army Air Force discover the source of the Orinoco River in British Guiana in an overflight.

Captain Hugh H. Goodman, USN, Commanding Officer of USS Gambier Bay (CVE 73) making first dungaree inspection on board ship, somewhere in the South Pacific, February 26, 1944.

From Sarah Sundin's blog:

Today in World War II History—February 26, 1944: Japanese retreat from Sinzweya, Burma, ending “Battle of the Admin Box." US Navy nurses are given actual commissioned rank instead of relative rank.

Today is GIS Day.

 Truly, it is.

Mount Blue Sky, was Mount Evans.

That's the story, Mt. Evans in Colorado has been renamed Mt. Blue Sky.

The mountain was named after Colorado Territorial Governor John Evans.  The Civil War era Governor was obviously popular enough at the time, but his association with the Sand Creek Massacre has caused his memory to tarnish over the years.  That association may be noted here:

June 24

1864   Colorado Governor John Evans warns that all peaceful Indians in the region must report to the Sand Creek reservation or risk being attacked.  This set in motion that lead to the chain of events that caused the infamous Sand Creek Massacre, The Battle of Red Buttes, and the Battle of Platte Bridge Station.

The even itself is discussed here:

November 29

1864         Sand Creek Massacre in which Colorado militia attack Black Kettle's Cheyenne band in Colorado.  Black Kettle was at peace, and the attack was unwarranted.  The unit would muster out shortly thereafter.  The attack would drive many Cheyenne north into Wyoming and western Nebraska, where they would link up with Sioux who were already trending towards hostility with the United States.  This would result in ongoing unbroken armed conflict between these tribes and the United States up through the conclusion of Red Cloud's War.

In 2020, current Colorado Governor Polish established The Colorado Geographic Naming Advisory Board which suggested the new name, which was approved by the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes.  Clear Creek County approved the renaming in 2022.

Evans' reassessment is an example of how such reappraisals have occured post World War Two. Evans was forced to resign as a result of the Sand Creek Massacre and was accused of a cover-up in regard to it, but nonetheless, as late as 1963 he was inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.  Charitable in many things, other than his views on the fate of Native Peoples, various things were named for him, including Mount Evans, a World War Two destroyer and the Evans Chapel at the University of Denver, the latter of which he had built in memory of a daughter.

Today In Wyoming's History: Albany County Commissioners vote to change name of lake.

Today In Wyoming's History: Albany County Commissiones vote to change name of ...: 

Albany County Commissiones vote to change name of lake.

The Albany County Commissioners have voted to change the name of Swastika Lake, in the Medicine Bow National Forest, to Samuel H. Knight Lake, after the famous Wyoming geologist.

One county commissioner, interestingly the only Republican one on the board, which shows how different Albany County's politics are compared to the most of the rest of Wyoming, slammed the move as "Communists".  Testimony by others dismissed that proposition, however, and indeed historical evidence showed that Native Americans objected to the use of the word as long ago as the 1940s.

The commissioner action now goes to the Wyoming board that deals with geographical names and, if they approve the change, on to the Federal Government.

Geography, Native Ameicans, Women, French, and Female Anatomy, laissez les bon mots rouler?

We recently posted this lengthy post on a Federal order to rename place names in the Federal domain that contain the word "squaw"

Today In Wyoming's History: Today In Wyoming's History: Wyoming has 43 federal...: Arapaho woman (Hisei), late 19th Century. Today In Wyoming's History: Wyoming has 43 federal places with 'squaw' in the ... :   ...

This is, as noted, a pretty in depth exploration of the topic.  We'd encourage you to read it.

Now news comes of a ranches decision, or hope, to rename such a place itself, and to drop the name "squaw" in favor of "boobs".

Well, in French, so it's nicer.

Allow us to explain.

In Teton County, as we've already noted, there exists of course the famous Grand Tetons. They're spectacular mountains, to be sure.

A panorama mic we stitched of the Grand Tetons back in 2012.  Photobucket since that time has screwed up the linkage, but it's our photo.

On Wyoming's Ladder Ranch, near Savery, just over the Wyoming border in Colorado, there exist a Little Squaw Mountain.  The owners of the ranch, whose excellent blog we link in to this site here, are proposing to rename the mountain Petite Tetons.

As many may know, Grand means "big" in French, and "petite" small.

Tetons?

Tits.

Yes, the nameless French fur trapper who came through and named the Grand Tetons was naming it "Big Tits" or "Big Boobs", depending upon how you want to translate it.  Perhaps he went on to also name the nearby Gros Ventre, which means "big belly".  

Anyway you look at it, the name is actually pornographic.  He was wondering around out there and decided that the majestic mountains in what is now northwest Wyoming reminded him of big boobs, and he so named them that.  Apparently the suggestion having been made, it stuck, perhaps causing other displaced Québécois to recall mammaries as well.  It clearly displayed a prurient interest.

Which the suggestion by the Wyoming ranchers, with land in Colorado, does not. They want to honor the mountain while getting rid of a name that they've come to regard as inappropriate.  And why not name it after the majestic Wyoming mountain rage.  What is now called Little Squaw Mountain has a certain majesty of its own.

Well, such efforts are fraught with difficulties and dangers, and here we find a couple.

We don't really know, in most cases, what the people who named places "squaw" had in mind.  There are all sorts of places named after women, but we often don't know why.  There are the "Three Sisters" peaks, for example, also in Wyoming. Why are they named that?  I think simply as they're three hills.

The term "squaw", which as noted we examined in this context at length, has become to be regarded as offensive in our day and age. At one time, it both was and wasn't, simultaneously. Early on, it doesn't appear to have been.  Times have changed, of course, and it now is.

But could you come out and call a mountain range "The Big Boobs"?  

Most certainly not, and for good reason.

But that's exactly what the Grand Tetons are called, albeit in French.

Does that make it okay?

Well, no, but we're used to the name and most of us don't speak French, so no doubt we'll stick with it. . . at least for the time being.

But should we rename a mountain named, basically, "little Indian woman" "small tits"?

I'd prefer that we didn't.

And should Colorado get a Tetons mountain of its own? The range is a distinct Wyoming land feature.

And the Law of Unintended Consequences reigns on.