Last year on Sept. 30, Algonquin spiritual teacher, poet and activist, Albert Dumont led a large march calling for the Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway to be renamed. This September 30, he was celebrating its official new name Kichi Zībī Mīkan.
Kichi Zībī means great river and is the Algonquin name for what would later be called the Ottawa River.
Mīkan is an Algonquin word meaning road or path, and it is the name many Algonquin groups called for and that Dumont said would be appropriate when he spoke to the crowd at the march on the parkway last year.
“Changing the name of the parkway was the right thing to do,” Dumont told Crosstalk. “To me, the parkway is as a trail running parallel to the Kichi Zibi. No other name is more suitable. Long live the Kichi Zibi Mikan!”
The name of the road was changed from the Ottawa River Parkway to the Sir John. A. Macdonald Parkway in 2012. Macdonald was the first prime minister of Canada and his government was largely responsible for creating the system of residential schools for Indigenous children.
Dumont is Algonquin advisor to Bishop Shane Parker of the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa, who also spoke at last year’s march, and commented this year that “Our march together helped to produce the right result.”
— LA Williams
St. John, Antrim — Deanery of the Southwest