The signs, they are a-changin’:
At its meeting on Wednesday, the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board of Commissioners approved an ordinance amendment that renames parkways and park roads containing the name “Calhoun,” according to a Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board news release. The parkways and park roads will now begin with Bde Maka Ska.
The board action amends the Minneapolis Park and Recreation ordinances to rename the following:
- Calhoun Boulevard West to Bde Maka Ska Boulevard West;
- Calhoun Drive to Bde Maka Ska Drive;
- East Lake Calhoun Parkway to East Bde Maka Ska Parkway;
- and West Lake Calhoun Parkway to West Bde Maka Ska Parkway.
The new signage began going up around the lake on Thursday, a day after the motion was approved.
Already, if you type in “Bde Maka Ska” into your device’s driving directions, Google is up to date on the switch: It directs you to the correct area of Minneapolis.
Bde Maka Ska — pronounced buh DAY’ muh KAHS’ ka — is what the Dakota Indians called the lake before the European settlement. It roughly translates to “Lake White Earth.”
The lake was later named after John C. Calhoun, the seventh vice president of the United States. Federal surveyors made the geographical designation in the early 1800s, when Calhoun was then the secretary of war.
But Calhoun was an apologist for slavery, calling it a “positive good,” and an advocate of removing Indians from their ancestral lands.
It was Calhoun’s legacy that led both the Minneapolis Park Board and the Hennepin County Board to push for removing his name in 2015. Hennepin County asked the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources to change the name of the lake itself; some challenged the move.
Last month, after a Minnesota Court of Appeals ruling, the Minnesota Supreme Court announced that it will review whether the DNR has the authority to change the name of Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis to its original Dakota name.
The brown parkway signs around Bde Maka Ska were updated on Thursday. The green City of Minneapolis traffic signs will be updated at a later date.
