Petition to change B.C. village of Moricetown to traditional name – CBC

Moricetown’s namesake was known for his fear tactics and punitive measures

Aug 27, 2017

A Wet’suwet’en woman is leading the charge to revert the name of her village, Moricetown, to its traditional name, Wiset.

The village, located halfway between Smithers and Terrace, was given its current namesake by Father Adrian Gabriel Morice who arrived in the Bulkley Valley in the late 1880s as a missionary for the Catholic church.

“Everybody is starting to see how Father Morice was back in the day; a missionary. [We are] reading about him in history books about how he really was and how he bullied our people into Catholicism,” said Wanda Nikal who is leading the charge to gather as many signatures from the community as she can.