The Edmonton Eskimos name is dead. But, why was it associated with this city’s sports teams for so long?
Many Edmonton hockey teams have carried the Eskimos name, including the 1923 edition that lost the Stanley Cup final to the Ottawa Senators. Several baseball clubs carried the Eskimos name, too.
According to Brant Ducey’s The Rajah of Renfrew, The Life and Times of John E. Ducey, Edmonton’s Mr. Baseball (Univesity of Alberta Press), the name was hatched by… Calgarians.
He wrote that, during the early 20th century, Calgary sportswriters called Edmontonians “Esquimeaux” as a way to knock the city’s location and weather. (Right, as compared to balmy Calgary). Deacon White, who owned early rugby, baseball and hockey teams in Edmonton, thought, let’s take that insult and use it as a badge of honour. Was it really a badge of honour, though? The Calgary papers used it as a derogatory term, suggesting it was lowly to be com-pared to Indigenous Canadians.
Poll
We want to ask about… taxes.
The 2021 municipal election takes place this coming fall.
25%City needs to hold the line on taxes
42%Am willing to pay more in order to increase/maintain services
25%Want my taxes reduced, even if means cuts to services/city staff
8%No opinion/this issue is not important to me
Current results
This article appears in the October 2020 issue of Edify.