W.I.S.E. Fire Tracking

Whychus creek. Formerly Squaw creek. Political correctness determined that “Squaw” was a derogatory name for any geographical feature. So the stream was renamed “Whychus” which is Sahaptin for “where we cross the waters.” Squaw has one interpretation as being a reference to female [snip]. Like the Tetons were named because they resembled [snip] lined up on end. All that we really know is that 19th century feature names were sometimes randy, to say the least. So what?

So now there is a forest fire up Whychus creek. The USFS has named the fire Rooster Rock Fire. Rooster Rock. The 19th name for any rock formation that resembled [snip]. That name is not about an unchoked chicken. [snip]

It is politically incorrect to have Squaw Creek, Butte, Mountain, Valley (oops! they held the Olympics there in 1960), ad nauseum. We get it. So why in the hell does the very same USFS name a fire after a rock formation resembling [snip], and not even question their demeaning of males? Or is it because males no longer count in the USFS. Or perhaps it is a reference to some particular male in an underhanded way. Revenge. Thank God this is not the Marble Mtns near the Trinity Alps. At one time they had a rock called Preachers [snip], and probably not on the maps, just like Squaw Tit is not the official name for Oregon’s Mt. Washington. So what are the flowers on bear grass now called? Bosom Blossoms?

Reply: I’m toning this discussion down. The issue is real — pioneer place names were often crudely fashioned, and we have a legacy of geographical crudeness we need to repair. But not by the use of crude language on this site at this time. Sorry. — Admin

Another “Rooster Rock” in Oregon:

http://www.orww.org/Osbornes_Project/Rooster_Rock/19370604_180-300.jpg

I don’t think Rooster Rock should be erased from the Oregon place names lists, just like the official committee did for Whorehouse Meadow on Steens Mountain, calling it Naughty Girl Meadow, and then a decade later changing it back to Whorehouse Meadow. It was, after all, the spot where the working girls from Nampa set up camp to fleece the shepherds who were wont to leave their flocks for a fling.

Squaw is certainly the Algonquin name for woman, queen, princess, and if that word became a demeaning word for a Native American woman, hard worked, prematurely old, often a burden carrier lorded over by males of the same people, it was only a manifestation of European colonial arrogance that was found around the world. But there is no doubt about what the Rooster in Rooster Rock is about. And it is not the national symbol of France (where the coc gauloise, the French Rooster, is used as we use the Bald Eagle) or a reference to fowl. Foul, perhaps, but not fowl. And so, I find it disingenuous that the USFS, that bastion of equality by consent decree, where the demographics of who works there must, by law, mimic the gender, gender preference, ethnicity, and cultural diversity of the State in which the Region employs, carelessly demeans men, males, by naming a forest fire of consequence after a hard, upright basaltic spire so named with tongue in cheek. Evidently what is good for the goose is not good for the gander.