The dissatisfaction of some Ucluelet movers and shakers with the town’s name has led to a resurgence in the campaign to rename the town.
Proponents of a name change claim the town’s hard-to-pronounce name has long held it back in the tourism field, on the premise that if gorbies can’t pronounce it they won’t want to visit it.
Past names proposed and defeated include Long Beach, U-clue-let (with hyphens), South Tofino, and Middelfart, in honour of the town’s Danish heritage.
The Tattler once pushed the adoption of the name Elke-u-let, in recognition of the overbearing influence Ukee’s “angel developer” Elke Loof-Koehler, of Marine Drive Properties, has had on the face and future of the town.
That effort did not bear fruit, but now proponents are proposing a similar name based on more recent events: Elke-blew-it.
Readers can make their own suggestions in the comments below.
3 responses so far ↓
Dogfish // 11 August, 2008 at 1:10 am
Wow, it sounds like you would be much happier with perhaps the town being named after the beloved company that truly raped and plundered this area———Mac Blo. Ya, inspight of what short sighted logger mentality they will try and dictate to you, don’t believe the lies about how evil these developers are. I know they actually include nature in their plans, how dare they, but thats because nature is the reason the tourists want to come and visit Ucluelet. From knowing some of the old time grumpy locals I can sure tell you its the beaches and the pure nature that brings the tourist dollar to town, not the town.
The same people that are bitching about a tourist development let their bored teenagers go drinking and smash bottles on the beach. And by the way, the next time my dog cuts his paw on your kids smashed beer bottle, well there I go again just making too much sense. I have chased your wonderful drunk brats off the beach a few times– they are about as weak physically as some of their parents are mentally. I don’t know what it is, I really do try to like the old gang of locals around town, but its such a cross between political correctness and ignorant redneck views. Well I guess the tourists aren’t the only ones in our town just to enjoy the nature. And your quite correct about the lack of quality tourist developers Ucluelet has attracted to date. But let me remind you, for years the great leaders of Ucluelet sent a very clear message to keep tourist friendly development out, especially if the idea didn’t come from one of them or their inbred friends in town. And of course apart from another clear cut idea or another ugly building to be added to town, the politicians just kept drawing blanks. Hey, Ucluelet is a beautiful place with a stupid name, get over it or start making some positive changes. I clean the beaches and I’m friendly to tourists, maybe small things but its the small things that make the biggest bang.
catfish // 11 August, 2008 at 6:47 am
You are being a little harsh to the local gang. I am going to remind you of a very big positive that Ucluelet has accomplished over the years. We have a state of the art sewage treatment plant. Thats right, we don’t shit in our beautiful ocean. This topic seems to rarely come up. Maybe Tofino is paying people off with hush hush money. Of course the truth about Tofino is they are toilet flushing ocean polluters. This doesn’t sit well with the Tofino clan that is oh so environmental. But once again Ucluelet makes it way to easy for onlookers to label Ucluelet the bad polluters. Thats right, did you know that our fearless leaders didn’t care for us to join the Biosphere. If you look at a map of the Biosphere its embarrasing how the border has to make a circle around Ucluelet in order to avoid our town. Short sighted, stupid rednecks. If our politicians can get the sewage treatment right—-there is hope. The lack of enthusiasm for the Biosphere is a big step backwards though. I’d like to know why this happened. Wait a minute, I know—-it wasn’t fronted by the beloved Mac blo. Wake up you fools.
Ucluelet local // 11 August, 2008 at 7:03 am
Hey—–The last two comments—— Way to go. Lots of food for thought and very well written. People like you should be leading our town. Keep up the good work. And my dog doesn’t appreciate the broken lucky bottles either.