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Naming Canada: Stories about Canadian Place Names

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On a trip once from Ottawa to the Eastern Provinces of Canada I drove by a place in called "St.-Louis-du-Ha! Ha!" and I laughed. Where did a little place in Eastern Quebec get such a ridiculous name? Well that question was answered for me in <I>Alan Rayburn's</I> <b>Naming Canada</b>, a great book exploring the unique names municipalities, cities, provinces and places throughout Canada.

The book is actually a collection of years of columns that appeared in <I>Canadian Geographic</I> that were written by the author. It explores the different ways that places were named, as well as ethnic origins of those names and any standards used to come used to create them.

At times, the essays contained within the book can seem a little academic for the average reader, which can render it a little boring. But the remarkable research put into the content of the book more than makes up for it. Overall, anyone who want to find out about why anyone would name a province Saskatchewan, or which native tribes were most responsible for the names that scatter the Canadian landscape, this is a very fascinating book, and well worth the read.