To Salish Sea or not to Salish Sea

I received this interesting email through a local kayaking listserv and it seemed appropriate for this blog -- maybe next they'll look in to making "Ish River Country" an official designation? Awesome map too -- click on it to get a larger version.

Greetings – You are likely aware that the Washington State Board on Geographic Names and the British Columbia Geographical Names Office received a proposal to adopt the name “Salish Sea” to describe the inland waters adjacent to Washington State and southwest British Columbia. The proposal is to add the name “Salish Sea” as a collective or umbrella-name to encompass Puget Sound, Strait of Georgia, Juan de Fuca Strait (Canada)/Strait of Juan de Fuca (USA), and their connecting channels, straits and passages, rather than remove or replace any existing place names.

These waters form a portion of the international boundary between Canada and the United States, hence federal naming authorities will also deliberate on whether to approve, deny, or defer the decision to adopt the name “Salish Sea” for national and international purposes. To avoid any confusion that would result from overlapping consultation processes, and to reduce the administrative burden on all parties, the four jurisdictions have agreed to share a single questionnaire, and use the British Columbia Geographical Names Office in Victoria as the single distribution and receiving point for all results.

We request your comments to help us gauge public support for the proposal to adopt the name “Salish Sea” and to determine the extent to which the name is already established and used by communities in the region. A map and information about the proposal has been included, to assist you in providing comments. Your reply is requested by July 31, 2009. Between August and late autumn, each Board and naming authority will meet and review the responses received from you or the group you represent. Any resulting decisions to adopt, deny or defer approval of the name “Salish Sea” will be based on conformance with established geographical naming principles, including comments received through this consultation process.

I've been using the term Salish Sea for a long time and find it to be a combination of usefulness and poetry. Send your comments to Meredith.Westington@noaa.gov by July 28th!