Over the last five years, the City of Salmon Arm’s Community Heritage
Commission has been working on a program that acknowledges the historic
names of our roads. They were names that meant something in community
development.
So far, 38 streets have been designated. They have stylized brown signs above the Calgary-grid-inspired numbered streets. 
The street names were replaced with numbers in 1973. It seems the
community leaders of the day wanted a whole new approach that made it
easy for newcomers to find locations. A similar scheme had been proposed
in 1968, but found a very vocal opposition.
“The whole idea is stupid; old names mean something, numbers don’t,” Ethel Belli-Bivar told the municipal council.
Some ideas don’t go away. When the item came back on the agenda for a
second time, community leaders thought that a grid system, no matter
how many of the streets curved, was better. Perhaps Ethel was not her
usual vocal self.
When Robert Hobson was contracted to create a Heritage Strategy for
the City of Salmon Arm in 2009, he spent some time in the community
figuring us out. He looked at the street names. He noted the lack of
community history. One of Hobson’s recommendations to council was the
program we have today.
The City leaders accepted the Hobson strategy and created the Community Heritage Commission to spearhead the work.
Every year the committee has worked away at the recommendations
Hobson made. It chose streets, buildings, and spaces that should be on a
heritage register. It created a template for street signs and plaques.
Jump ahead to 2014 when a friend had a medical emergency shopping at Askew’s, the local grocery store.
My friend and mother of my surrogate grandchildren, had her girls
Jasmine and Morgan with her. The girls ran to get help. An ambulance was
called.
But what were the staff at Askew’s to do with the two lively 8 year olds?
When asked for their phone number, neither Jasmine nor Morgan knew
it. Memorizing the number was on the Mom’s list of things to do.
Where do you live? The girls were asked.
The two surrogates were healthy and active and could probably have
walked their way home, but they couldn’t tell the clerk what their
street address was.
“What about a grandparent?” The clerk asked. The staff at Askew’s were skilled.
The girls knew their grandma’s name. First and last. Askew’s staff
checked the telephone listings and called for help. They were connected
to the girls’ other local grandma. Mom was going to be okay.
So fast forward another year. Travelling to or from one of our
adventures, I asked the 9 year olds sitting in their booster seats,
“Where do you live?”
“On Leech Hill,” they chimed in unison. Their actual street address – a number – was still a mystery.
Almost fifty years later, I have to agree with Ethel Belli-Bivar. Names mean something, numbers don’t.