Village of Moricetown Reverts to Traditional Name Witset

The village of Moricetown, here in northern British Columbia, is going back to its original name, Witset. This change comes more than 120 years after a Roman Catholic missionary named the place after himself.

A local Wet'suwet'en woman, Wanda Nikal, is leading the effort to gather signatures from the community to make the change official. The village itself is located halfway between Smithers and Terrace.

Father Adrian Gabriel Morice arrived in the Bulkley Valley in the late 1880s as a missionary. Nikal says that reading about him in history books shows "how he bullied our people into Catholicism." Morice was known for using fear tactics on Indigenous people. David Mulhall, who wrote *Will to power: the missionary career of Father Morice*, states that Morice used "fear and an arbitrary, punitive approach" even after Indigenous people formally converted. He was even admonished by the church for naming the village after himself. Besides the village, Morice also named Morice Falls, Morice Lake, Morice River, and Morice Mountain after himself.

Nikal herself wondered growing up why the village was called Moricetown and what its traditional name was. She learned that Witset means "first or before anyone," referring to the people of the first village. She's already tested the traditional name by using "Witset Annual Sports Day" for the local sports event and received positive feedback, especially from elders.

Other villages in this region, like Lax Kw'alaams, Kitwanga, and Gitanyow, have either kept or reverted to their First Nations place names, often phoneticized for English writing. Band manager Lucy Gagnon said the band supports the change and hasn't heard any opposition. She spoke with Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada and found the process should be simple: they just need to be advised of the change, which will be done on a local level.