Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Reason for number in name of Indian reserves

Question

I have a student looking for 1981 population data for two Indian reserves in BC. I have the data for her, but I just want to check one detail. Why is there a number in the name of the Indian reserve in the Standard Geographical Classification. For example, there is a "1" after Skidegate (Skidegate 1) and a "1" after Gitanmaax (Gitanmaax 1). I can't seem to find anything in any documentation that explains this. Since Skidegate 1 seems to be the only Skidegate listed, and it's in the right place on the map, I'm assuming that it's the Skidegate we want, but what's with the "1"?

Answers

1. There is a list of all the CSD names from the 1981 census, extracted from the Geography tape file for 1981, at:
http://prod.library.utoronto.ca:8090/datalib/codebooks/c/cc81/csd81.lst
The numbering seems to differentiate Indian reserves that are in different locations, but belong to the same band/nation.

Some bands/nations had more than one reserve, others seem to only have had one, or at least only one with a permanent resident population. Eg Switsemalph in census division 39 has Switsemalph 3, 6 and 7 (I have no idea what happened to 1, 2, and 4 - perhaps they were simply not inhabited at the time the census was conducted?)

Maybe someone else can explain the numbering, but no logical relationship leaps out at me from the Indian reserve name/number combinations in that list. The numbers are certainly not unique within a CD, although the numbers are unique within a name.

2. The number was given at a time when the Indian Reserve was in parts and the numbering has become part of the official name. In this case, the official name of the reserve is Skidegate 1. If you go on the Community Profile on STC website and write the name Skidegate, it will bring you to the information for Skidegate 1. Other reserves have also numbers as part of their official name.

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