{"id":31737,"date":"2016-10-15T01:22:31","date_gmt":"2016-10-15T08:22:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/barrow-votes-to-change-name-to-inupiat-eskimo-version\/"},"modified":"2016-10-15T01:22:31","modified_gmt":"2016-10-15T08:22:31","slug":"barrow-votes-to-change-name-to-inupiat-eskimo-version","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/barrow-votes-to-change-name-to-inupiat-eskimo-version\/","title":{"rendered":"Barrow votes to change name to Inupiat Eskimo version"},"content":{"rendered":"

ANCHORAGE<\/strong> \u2014 Residents in the nation\u2019s northernmost community have voted to change the name of the Alaska town to its traditional Inupiat Eskimo name.<\/p>\n

A slight majority of voters in the largely Inupiat city of Barrow approved efforts to change the community\u2019s name to Utqiagvik in their local election Oct. 4. The vote was tight, with 381 in favor of the name change and 375 against it.<\/p>\n

\u201cBasically, it reinforces the cultural identity of the people,\u201d said Mayor Bob Harcharek, who is not Native. He noted that early day missionaries set up schools in the area where students were forbidden to speak in their native language and were punished if they did so. \u201cIt caused some social psychological problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barrow City Council member Qaiyaan Harcharek, the mayor\u2019s son, introduced a local ordinance in August that began the process ratified by voters. The younger Harcharek is Inupiat on his mother\u2019s side.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are now in an era where the reclamation of tradition is critical to the perpetuation of identity as I\u00f1upiat,\u201d he wrote in an email Friday to The Associated Press. \u201cThe people of Utqiagvik voted to regain our traditional name. Hopefully, it signifies the beginning of a decolonizing revolution. Regaining our traditional names is just one step towards that healing!\u201d<\/p>\n

Another Alaska community in recent years to change its name is the western Alaska village now known as Numan Iqua, which was known as Sheldon Point until voters approved the new name in 1999.<\/p>\n

Barrow\u2019s vote follows a high profile name change in Alaska. Last year, the Obama administration decided to bestow the traditional Alaska Native name to North America\u2019s tallest mountain, from Mount McKinley to Denali, an Athabascan word meaning \u201cthe high one.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also an ongoing effort to rename Devils Tower National Monument, a giant rock butte in northeast Wyoming. Local American Indians and others are seeking to have it switched to Bear Lodge.<\/p>\n

Among those unhappy with the Barrow change is William Phillips, a non-Native local married to an Inupiat woman. Phillips, who voted against the change, owns the Barrow Souvenirs and Gifts shop and is a 22-year resident of the town located more than 700 miles north of Anchorage.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s stupid,\u201d he said Friday. \u201cI don\u2019t understand how it got passed.\u201d<\/p>\n

He hasn\u2019t decided if he\u2019ll change the shop\u2019s name as well.<\/p>\n

Phillips believes the name change will come with enormous cost to the city to make changes reflecting the new name. It also will be a huge inconvenience to residents who will now have to change documents such as drivers\u2019 licenses. While understanding why people voted for the change, Phillips doesn\u2019t believe everyone considered the practical impact.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of the yes votes probably were proud Native people who think they\u2019re going to revitalize their culture,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd in fact there\u2019s other ways to do that instead of putting all the expenditures right back in the community that we can\u2019t afford already.\u201d<\/p>\n

The city is following state code to implement the change in the Arctic Ocean coastal town of nearly 5,000. Bob Harcharek said a notification was mailed as required to the lieutenant governor\u2019s office this week, noting the name change becomes official 45 days after notification.<\/p>\n

Claire Richardson, spokeswoman for Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott, said the paperwork has not yet been received.<\/p>\n

The town was named in 1826 for Sir John Barrow, 2nd Secretary of the British Admiralty, according to the state\u2019s community database and other sources.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not immediately clear what the city\u2019s new Inupiat name means.<\/p>\n

Some say it means \u201ca place where snow owls are hunted\u201d while others say it essentially means a place for gathering potatoes, even though potatoes are not native to the area.<\/p>\n

With the name change, the town also is seeking state approval to change its stop signs to the Inupiat word: \u201cNutqagin,\u201d the mayor said. If necessary, the English word \u201cStop\u201d also will be added, but it will be much smaller than the Native word on the red octagonal sign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ANCHORAGE \u2014 Residents in the nation\u2019s northernmost community have voted to change the name of the Alaska town to its traditional Inupiat Eskimo name. A slight majority of voters in the largely Inupiat city of Barrow approved efforts to change the community\u2019s name to Utqiagvik in their local election Oct. 4. The vote was tight, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":31738,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-31737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31737"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=31737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}