Salt Spring vs. Saltspring

Q: What is the correct spelling, Salt Spring or Saltspring?
- K.S., Salt Spring Island (the Driftwood spells it as two words)

A: A sure way to ignite a local’s adrenaline is to raise this age-old debate. Misspelling the island, it seems, is as taboo as misspelling your new mother-in-law’s name on a Christmas gift.
Islanders have been divided on the issue since Governor James Douglas wrote a letter in 1853 that referenced “Salt Spring Island,” only to have it three years later printed on a Vancouver Island area map as “Saltspring Island.”

As much as I was thrilled by the prospect of finding a definitive answer out there, it seems there is no “official” way to tell which spelling variation is the correct one.

But a quick survey of who spells it which way raises some interesting questions. It becomes not a question of which way is correct, but rather, who is the official source to say so.

“The island became known locally as Salt Spring (two words) Island, in spite of Grant’s 1856 one-word spelling,” reads an article on the Salt Spring Island Archives website (note: two words).

So is it the locals who have final say on the spelling of their home sweet home?

Even if it were up to the locals, could a consensus ever be reached? The contention around the true name of the cherished 182.7-square-kilometre land mass is not easily dead and buried. Everyone has a preference and most take pride in the club to which they belong: the Salt Springers versus the Saltspringers.

I know this from personal experience.

As a Driftwood proofreader, like a dentist hunting for cavities, I get a kind of sick pleasure from picking through drafts of the newspaper each week looking for typos where “Saltspring” has been written instead of “Salt Spring.”

The Driftwood adheres to the “Salt Spring” spelling.

“What I don’t get is, what is a ‘Saltspring?’” asked Driftwood editor Gail Sjuberg, purposefully slurring the “salt” and “spring” together to prove her point. She believes that when the words are divided in two, the meaning of the salt springs the island was named for is retained.

Others who have similarly chosen to separate the words are Canada Post and Charles Kahn, author of Salt Spring: The Story of an Island, and Google (if you search for “Saltspring Island,” the search engine will detect this as an error and ask: “did you mean: Salt Spring Island?”)

Others, however, prefer to see the words mashed together.

Several local businesses and institutions such as Saltspring Air, Saltspring Soapworks and Saltspring Island Middle School have trademarked logos that confidently display the one-word spelling. (The words do look appealing arched as a one-word rainbow at the top of a logo.)

Wikipedia and the Geographical Names Board of Canada (since 1905) adhere to the one-word version. BC Ferries shows it both ways, depending where you look.

Thus, we are divided.

If locals can’t agree on a name, who is the “official” source?

Is it Canada Post, our country’s prime postal operator? The Geographical Names Board of Canada, the national committee which authorizes the names used on official federal government maps of Canada? Or Google, who gauges the most common search entries by checking queries with spell check software against common spellings of each word?

“Perhaps the debate over the island’s name planted the seeds of Salt Spring Islanders’ contentious natures,” notes Charles Kahn in his book about the island.

So are we content to say that we agree to disagree?

Have your say: leave a comment below.

Tags: Amy Geddes, Driftwood, Gulf Islands Driftwood, salt spring, saltspring, You Asked