I have always been really curious to why the Three Sisters Mountains were called the Three Sisters, they looked nothing like girls. It was Albert Rogers, who named the three peaks He recalled, "There had been quite a heavy snowstorm in the night, and when we got up in the morning and looked out of the tent I noticed each of the three peaks had a heavy veil of snow on the north side and I said to the boys, 'Look at the Three Nuns.' They were called the Three Nuns for quite a while but later were called the 'Three Sisters. The name "Three Sisters" first appeared on Dr. George Dawson's map of 1886 and it is quite likely that he thought that the name Three Sisters would be more appropriate.

Hanna. Hanna, Alberta was named after the Canadian National Railways president, then, Mr. David Hanna. Hanna has been home to many famous and important people such as:Kevin Warwick and Lanny McDonald, Marjorie Willison, author and radio personality, a Rhodes Scholar, an engineer, Zach Weich, who worked on both the Avro Arrow and for NASA, and the rock band Nickelback.

The name Saskatoon comes from the Saskatoon berry. The berry is a sweet violet color and the Saskatoon area is the only place that it grows. That is why the area is called Saskatoon.

Red deer was called Red Deer because elk used to graze by the Red Deer River and the British Settlers did not know that these animals were elk and thought that they were red deer. So they chose to name the area Red Deer. The First Nations people in that area must have known that they were elk and I wonder if they laughed at the settlers for not recognizing the animals as elk.

Medicine Hat is really different because it is translated literally. When translated in Blackfoot it means the headdress of a medicine man. So Medicine Hat was probably a place where herbs or other healing ingredients grew

Did you know that Athabasca River, Lake Athabasca, Athabasca, Athabasca Falls and Mount Athabasca all mean where there are reeds in Cree. That makes sense because they are all either bodies of water of places near bodies of water.

Did you know that Canada means village or settlement in Saint Lawrence Iroquoian? I kind of found that weird because you don’t think of Canada actually meaning something, you think it refers to a country. So I found that interesting.

Canada’s economy is very important but did you know that there is a village called Economy, Nova Scotia. When Nova Scotia was Acadia the area was called L’ Economie. The word L’Economie comes from the First Nation word kenomee which means land that is jutting into the sea. Seriously I didn’t know that a name could have so much history in it.

I searched some really weird names in Canada and came up with Saint Louis de Ha! Ha! Apparently ha-ha in French means a suddenly stopping path. The Louis is said to refer to Louis Marquis, one of the first colonists of the area.

I’ve always kind of wondered why Whitehorse called Whitehorse and I finally found out that it is named after the White Horse Rapids on the Yukon River. Which were not easy to get around in the Yukon Gold Rush. The rapids were said to look like the manes of charging horses. Too bad we can’t go see them now, they built a hydro dam in 1959 and The White Horse Rapids are now the Schwatka Lake reservoir. I suppose hydro electricity is important but I personally would have loved to see those rapids.
 

I thought it would be cool to find out the origin of Edmonton. Edmonton is named after present historical site Fort Edmonton. Fort Edmonton was a Hudson’s Bay trading post near Fort Augustus, a North West Company trading post. Both posts were deserted in 1810. Fort Edmonton is supposedly named after a former city district in London England. To think that our history traces back to 1810 and earlier and how things people in the past we are now learning about in present. I wonder if in the future people will be learning about life and saying “Wow! I can’t believe that they lived like that”.

I chose Lake Louise because I was curious to find out who Louise was. I find out that Louise was Princess Louise Caroline Alberta. She was the fourth daughter of Queen Victoria. Princess Louise was the duchess of Argyll and Marchioness of Lorne. Her husband John Campbell was the Governor General of Canada and so he had the honour of choosing the name for the unsettled west. He chose Alberta after Princess Louise Caroline Alberta. He also named a lake after her, Lake Louise. This is an important part of Canada’s history. So, next time you’re in The Chateau Lake Louise make sure to look at the pieces of history that are there.

Hi, As most of you know, I already have a blog called My Opinion. I am also really interested about why a place was called what is was called, so whenever I have soem free time I look up the origin of a name. I hope you enjoy learning about why places were called what they were called.