Shas Ti/Kelly Road

Photo from the Prince George Citizen, April 27, 1961

For context: School name change in Prince George sparks community backlash

First, let’s get this out of the way: Kelly Road Secondary School was not named for John Kelly, at least not directly.

John Kelly did not build the school with his own two hands, nor was it his vision that made sure education came to the Hart. Land was not donated by him. The school was named, as most schools at the time were named, based on its actual, physical location. Just as Peden Hill the school was near Peden Hill the hill and Duchess Park the school adjacent to Duchess Park the park, Kelly Road the school was named to indicate that if you wanted to find it, you would go to Kelly Road. I guarantee you that all of us have given more thought to this school’s name over the past few months than anyone did at the time it was originally created.

That said, there was a John Kelly, the person. So who was he? In the book Prince George Street Names under the entry for Kelly Road he is described as such:

“Mr. Kelly came to Prince George as a surveyor and bought land for the timber, He had a jewelry and watchmaking shop.”

In the entry for Kelly Street, a few more details:

“John C. Kelly, an Englishman, was a jeweller who opened a store on George Street. He is remembered particularly for his generous donations of trophies which are still sought after by local curlers and horticulturalists. The best known of these prizes is the Kelly Cup that is the trophy for curling. In 1934, Mr. Kelly founded the local Horticultural Society.”

And if you look up John Kelly in Prince George: Rivers, Railways and Timber you learn that “One of the city’s most famous curling trophies is the Kelly Cup, donated to the club in 1927 by John Kelly, a jeweller and a sports fan.”

The Kelly Cup still exists, I’ve seen it. It’s rumoured to be the largest curling trophy in the sport. So John Kelly was a downtown businessman who loved sports. His legacy lives on in the trophy that bears his name, as well as two streets — one of which is in the Hart, presumably because it led to the land he bought for timber and surveying. Not as an act of generosity but to make money, some of which he donated to the local sports community.

This is not John Kelly, but it is his watch store in the background.

Also not John Kelly. I couldn’t find any photos of him.

So we’ve established a bit around John Kelly, and the legacy he secured for himself in the world of curling, a sport he loved, with a trophy provided by him, which is appropriate as he ran a jewelry shop. Searching through the city’s newspaper archives, I’ve been unable to find any direct connection between John Kelly the man and Kelly Road the school, just the fact that the school was built in proximity to a street that had his name. It was about geography.

So let’s talk about geography. The act of naming things is how we tell stories about ourselves. For much of our— settler— history, this was pretty simple. The Moffats live on that street? It’s Moffat Street. That road that takes you to the Kelly land claim? That’s Kelly Road. Or we named things after royals, as members of the British Empire. Or the people who “discovered” them, like the Fraser River.

the school’s current identity

This, of course, ignores the people who were here previously, who’d been using that river for generations and didn’t need anyone to find it for them, who had their own geography and ways of describing the landscape around them to each other. This act of ignoring was predicated on the notion that they weren’t worthy of respect as equals, that our systems and languages and naming conventions were superior. It played out in ways we rightly recognize as wrong today, by burning down homes to make way for a park, preventing Indigenous people who served in the Canadian army in the world wars from receiving the same veteran’s benefits as everyone else, through residential school.

Kelly Road Secondary was not named after deep thought about how it would impact the students or what story it would tell because, at the time, people named schools after the nearest recognizable geographic landmark by people for whom geographical landmarks were largely based around which businessman happened to claim the land. The positive feelings generations of students associate with it is not some magic of the name itself, but because of the meaning their experiences gave the name. I have a hard time believing they wouldn’t love the school just as much had it been called “Hart Highway Secondary” or “Handlen Road Secondary”.

Which is why I’m surprised there are so many who can’t seem to imagine a future where students can love a school with the words “Shas Ti” on the building. Like Kelly Road, Shas Ti tells a story of geography. The difference is that rather than the story of who happened to clear nearby land for timber in the early 20th century, it’s the story of what the land was known for before that. A Dakelh phrase for “Grizzly Trail,” from oral history that this area was once a grizzly hunting grounds. And yes, I know, grizzly bears don’t roam those roads anymore but I don’t think roadrunners, the school’s current mascot in the form of a Warner Bros. knock-off, ever did. Shas Ti connects the school and everyone there not just to an early 20th century history but one that goes back centuries, and tells us more about why people — not just one group of white, European people, but people, humans — came here in the first place. It is rooted to the land and the geography we love, and like all names is ready to take on the meaning of whatever memories we create on the space it occupies.

See also: Hello, Let’s Talk About A Park