Have you heard something and went, “Why in the world wasn’t that a thing sooner?” Well, many people likely thought the same when the Alaskan “Nazi Creek” was recently renamed to “Kaxchim Chiĝanaa.” According to the Alaska Beacon, the name is in the language of an indigenous group of Alaskan natives, and it means “gizzard creek” or “creek or river belonging to gizzard island.” 100% of the votes by the Domestic Names Committee of the U.S. Board on Geographic Names were in support of this name, needless to say. However, several online users joke about whether those in D.C. would think otherwise.
“How long until The White House learns about this and reverses the change?” quips a Redditor, with their comment garnering almost a thousand upvotes. “They will name it ‘Trump Creek,'” chuckled a reply. “Or, just rename it Republican Creek?” chimed in another. By now, it should be pretty obvious regarding the criticisms about the Trump administration these days, from Elon’s budget cuts to the so-called “Nazi” terrorizing of ICE on both citizens and immigrants. With a creek named after Germany’s political party during WWII, the joke and comparisons were bound to come up.
The Nazi Creek wasn’t the only name change the committee made for locations in Alaska. “Nip Hill” was changed to “Kaxchim Qayaa” or “gizzard hill.” For those unaware, the ‘nip’ term is an ethnic slur against Japanese people, similar to “Japs” or the like. Naturally, it was used by some during WWII, seeing how the Japanese were enemies of the U.S. at the time. Unfortunately, there is some tragic backstory to the people whose language is used to rename the creek and hill.
The group is known as Unangax̂, and the U.S. government forced around 900 of its people out of their homes and into “unsuitable internment camps in Southeast Alaska and elsewhere.” As a result, “Many became sick and died from the conditions imposed by the government.” Horrific history aside, you wonder why no one changed the names of the creek and hill sooner. As one person puts it: “Seems like that one may have been a little overdue.”
