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  #1  
Old Posted Nov 3, 2009, 12:48 AM
nova9 nova9 is offline
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Vancouver, Washington may change its name

From CBC: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-col...me-change.html

Quote:
Confusion over 2 Vancouvers an election issue

Residents of Vancouver, Wash., go to the polls Tuesday and the outcome of the election could change the city — or at least its name.

A slate of candidates is poised to form a majority on council, and one platforms calls for a new name for the city in the southwestern corner of the state.

Supporters want to switch to the name, Fort Vancouver, arguing it's the only way to avoid confusion with the much larger city of Vancouver, B.C., 500 kilometres to the north.

Fort Vancouver was named and founded by the Hudson's Bay Co. in 1825. It was changed to Vancouver in 1857.

The city of Vancouver, B.C., was incorporated under that name in 1886.

If supporters of a name change for the U.S. city are elected to council, they could put the issue on a referendum ballot.

The city has put the question to a referendum three times since 1960, with the forces in favour of change getting more support each time.

Opponents of the plan — including the current mayor — argue that there are no other Vancouvers in the United States, and this should be the deciding factor.

Last edited by nova9; Nov 3, 2009 at 12:49 AM. Reason: add url
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  #2  
Old Posted Nov 3, 2009, 12:51 AM
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Meh, they should just be happy that a good % of Americans will probably show up THERE for the 2010 Olympics.
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  #3  
Old Posted Nov 3, 2009, 1:04 AM
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Good. They have been stealing our spot light for far too long
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  #4  
Old Posted Nov 3, 2009, 1:09 AM
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I hope they do change their name, that entire area down to the mouth of the Columbia River was initially suppose to be part of BC, not the USA. They stole what would have essentially become our best land, so they can bend over once for us!
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  #5  
Old Posted Nov 3, 2009, 1:13 AM
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I like the name "Granville". I don't think it is taken.
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  #6  
Old Posted Nov 3, 2009, 1:22 AM
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Originally Posted by Metro-One View Post
I hope they do change their name, that entire area down to the mouth of the Columbia River was initially suppose to be part of BC, not the USA. They stole what would have essentially become our best land, so they can bend over once for us!
Huh. I didn't know this before. Learned something new today.
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  #7  
Old Posted Nov 3, 2009, 1:30 AM
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There are many major cities that share their name with a small city. Like Sydney and London. However, Vancouver, WA is only a few hours drive from Vancouver on essentially the same highway, so changing their name back to Fort Vancouver would be a good idea.
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  #8  
Old Posted Nov 3, 2009, 1:39 AM
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Originally Posted by Vancity View Post
Huh. I didn't know this before. Learned something new today.
It's true, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_boundary_dispute

However I question whether most of now-Washington State would have become part of Canada. A more likely scenario is that BC would have become part of the US - that's the main reason why the CP was constructed to Vancouver.
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  #9  
Old Posted Nov 3, 2009, 2:08 AM
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Fort Vancouver is more distinctive.
And there was that case a few years ago where a driver drove the wrong way following signs to "Vancouver".
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  #10  
Old Posted Nov 3, 2009, 3:17 AM
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^ This happens every once in a while, with some Americans bypassing Vancouver, WA by accident and continuing on to Canada. These individuals (admittedly only a handful) must be quite uneducated, or at least geographically illiterate, as the signage for "Vancouver, BC" is very clear from downtown Seattle and all points north on the I-5.

As for the name change, I like it. It would actually be a plus for "Fort" Vancouver, WA - as people don't realize that city has quite a history. It doesn't sound bad at all. They should definitely go for it.

A few years ago, apparently, the mayor of Vancouver, WA walked into a Starbucks and flew into a rage because the store was selling "Portland" coffee mugs. The joke was that the store could have been stocked with "Vancouver" mugs, which might have appeased him.
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  #11  
Old Posted Nov 3, 2009, 4:06 AM
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I'm surprised that they are at it again vis-a-vis the name change. I recall voters turning down the 'Fort' option not too many years ago. I also recall a sports team landing at the Vancouver, WA. airport a few years back - the 'wrong' Vancouver.

Some comments from the 'Columbian' newspaper. At least we got it right with 'British' Columbia.

Quote:
Make Vancouver B.C. change its name. We had the name well before those interlopers did.
Quote:
Leave the name as it is! If there are that many Bimbos who don't know the difference between Vancouver, Washington and Vancouver, British Columbia, then take advantage of the similarities and market the Winter Olympics, include a map and directions to the Canadian side of the state!!!...!P
http://columbian.com/article/2009110...lay+name+games
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  #12  
Old Posted Nov 5, 2009, 6:03 PM
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Interesting! I kind of like Fort Vancouver. Less confusion while being true to its identity and heritage.

Here's a true story that's somewhat related.

A few summers ago I worked at the tourist info center in Vancouver by Canada Place, and a lovely couple from England had just walked off their cruiseship and were in town for a few nights. They needed to find transportation to the Red Lion Hotel (which was booked by a UK-based travel agent).

Well, I knew right away something was strange, as there are no Red Lion hotels in Vancouver, or Canada as far as I'm aware. I wanted to double check they had the right hotel name, so they pulled out their reservation confirmation and that's when I noticed that they were fully booked for several night's stay at the Red Lion Hotel in Vancouver WA.

Needless to say, they were not impressed with their travel agent!
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  #13  
Old Posted Nov 11, 2009, 9:05 PM
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If anyone has actually goes to Vancouver, WA to see the Olympics. They deserve the following award "I am the biggest idiot of the century"
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  #14  
Old Posted Nov 11, 2009, 10:47 PM
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At least Captain Vancouver actually laid eyes on the site of present day Vancouver. Maybe they should rename Vancouver, WA to Broughton WA. Fort Vancouver is a good compromise though.

There is a Red Lion in Victoria.
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  #15  
Old Posted Nov 12, 2009, 12:18 AM
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Name it Revuocnav, that way it maintains its name while being different.
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  #16  
Old Posted Nov 12, 2009, 1:41 AM
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/\ Makes sense in a way ... hum, guess the good folks in Adanac, Saskatchewan must have used this same logic
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  #17  
Old Posted Nov 12, 2009, 2:51 AM
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we should probably should also change the name of vancouver, since it's an absurd colonial anachronism (kind of like the absurdly generic names of washington and british columbia, come to think of it), so good on these folks for getting it into the the agora, however tepidly. anyone know if they won? i can't seem to find out. would be cool if they'd just go full bore and take on some completely different name, it's the bella bella tribe down there, right? would be cool to take some name from them, even if it were generic, the bella bella word for "communion" or "community", for instance.
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  #18  
Old Posted Nov 12, 2009, 4:38 AM
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Change a name here in BC or down in WA is simply a waste of money. To make it more confusing, let's have Seattle changed to Vancouver as well...since George Vancouver was the first to explore the Puget Sound Region.
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  #19  
Old Posted Nov 17, 2009, 6:21 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MechMike View Post
Name it Revuocnav, that way it maintains its name while being different.
Sounds like a Russian port...

... which kind of fits, if you consider Russian explorers were some of the first Europeans in and around coastal BC.
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  #20  
Old Posted Dec 6, 2009, 4:51 AM
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HAHAHHAHA front page nytimes.com PUNKED! go real vancouver!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/us...r.html?_r=1&hp

Quote:
Vancouver Is Talking Tough to Itself

By WILLIAM YARDLEY
Published: December 5, 2009

VANCOUVER, Wash. — This striving city in the Pacific Northwest is not — repeat, not — the one that will host the Winter Olympics in February. But if you reserve a hotel during the Games, as some geographically confused sports fans have attempted to do, no one here will complain.

“The joke among the hotels,” said Elson Strahan, who helps oversee a historic site in town, “was that with tourism down, everyone should book as many of those rooms as they can.”

Humor only masks the hurt.

With world attention about to focus on that other Vancouver, the one with the international cachet, the creative cuisine and the cosmopolitan diversity, this Vancouver is having a tough talk with itself.

How, it is asking, can a former mill town that has become an increasingly assertive city, a place that courts high-tech companies and takes pride in its expanding university campus, make a name for itself when another city with the same name in the same misty vicinity of North America has already done so and then some?

“My mother always thought I lived in Canada,” said Gene Wigglesworth, who moved here in 1977 to open a muffler repair shop. “For years, I’ve put up with that.”

After decades of patient clarification and abundant parentheses (this Vancouver is in the United States), the matter is now being met head on by business and tourism leaders here. This fall, they began hosting a series of panels, guest speaker presentations and brainstorming sessions with the goal of uniting behind a clear message.

“What do we really have here?” asked Kim J. Capeloto, chief executive of the Greater Vancouver Chamber of Commerce. “And how can we package it?”

The trouble is that, so far, the search for answers has inadvertently resurrected an old and controversial question, one far more prickly than a new branding campaign: Should this Vancouver stop calling itself Vancouver?

Why not, instead, Fort Vancouver?

There is already a high school here named Fort Vancouver. A library, too. Even a Little League. They are all named for the 360-acre, riverfront chunk of land that is the reason the city is here in the first place, the Fort Vancouver National Site. It is where in the 1820s the Hudson’s Bay Company established a fur-trading post and where the United States military later built barracks that were active for 150 years, until 2000. The site has long been the location of community events, including fireworks on the Fourth of July.

“It’s not changing to something we weren’t, it’s changing back to something we were,” said Mr. Strahan, who is president and chief executive of the Fort Vancouver National Trust, which helps manage the site. “And I think it will prompt a much easier dialogue for the city and region.”

Some people have simply had enough of explaining.

This Vancouver, 250 miles south of the other one, rests on the mighty Columbia River, traveled so famously by Lewis and Clark. It was incorporated nearly 30 years before the other Vancouver. And while some might think this Vancouver is in Canada, plenty of others view it as simply another suburb of Portland (the one in Oregon), which is just across the river (and the Washington State line). Residents here leave daily to do the most basic things over there, like work and, because there is no state sales tax in Oregon, shop. (Then again, there is no state income tax over here.)

“In the past 10 years, what we’ve learned is that people have no idea where ‘Southwest Washington’ is,” said Kim Bennett, the president and chief executive of the Southwest Washington Convention and Visitors Bureau, which is based here in Vancouver and includes surrounding Clark County.

Mr. Wigglesworth, who opened the muffler shop, gets at much of this in a T-shirt that he sells in town. It reads:

“Vancouver

not B.C.

Washington

not D.C

Clark County

not Nevada

Near Portland, Or.

not Maine”

He has an idea for another shirt: “If you are in the Federal Witness Protection Program, do we have a city for you.”

Vancouver (this Vancouver) has considered renaming itself before. In a recent editorial, The Columbian newspaper noted that at least three different times city voters had rejected changing to Fort Vancouver. But while the vote against was 86 percent in 1967, opposition was down to 61 percent in the last vote. That was way back in 1975, when the population was a fraction of the 160,000 people who live here now.

“Anyone see a trend there?” the newspaper said. “We wonder how much the Vancouver population has churned since 1975. So, let’s talk.”

There is no plan for a new vote at this point. The departing mayor, who called himself “mayor of America’s Vancouver,” is being succeeded by one who has said there are more important issues to address, including the potential tax revenue lost from so many people shopping across the river.

Nor are there plans for a mock Olympics here, like the one held in Albertville, Ala., in 1992, when the Winter Olympics were held in Albertville, France.

Remember, business leaders say, this is about more than the Olympics or even the name Vancouver. And get over the Canada thing.

“This is about how to capitalize on where we are, what we have and who we are,” said Mr. Capeloto of the Chamber of Commerce. “It doesn’t have to do with our name. You can call this anything you want. Call it whatever.
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