Three volunteers stood behind the welcome desk at the Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel Island, Florida when I visited last week.
The refuge was damaged when Hurricane Ian devastated much of the island and other parts of southwest Florida in 2022, but it’s still standing, thank goodness. Ding Darling is a magical place, its 7,000 acres set aside since1945 as a federally protected refuge operated by the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Fish and Wildlife Service. It’s home to many types of reptiles, amphibians, fish and mammals, but migratory birds who overwinter there are the superstars.
“Good morning,” the volunteer said when I walked up to the counter. “Can I answer any questions for you?”
I decided to get right to the point. “Is this place in danger of being shut down?”
From the expression on his face, I knew I’d chosen the right person to talk with. “We’re taking it day by day,” he said softly. Then he handed me a map of Sanibel Island. To its north is Pine Island Sound. To the south is a more famous body of water. On that body of water was a square sticker, a slightly different shade of blue. In a large font in all capital letters were the words GULF OF AMERICA.
“A volunteer spent an entire day putting these stickers over the words GULF OF MEXICO on every map we have,” he told me. “Can you imagine?”
“Who made you do that?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. We volunteers do as we’re told.”
I locked eyes with him without saying anything. A minute passed. Then two. Finally, he told me that if I didn’t mind waiting he’d try to find out. He soon returned. “All I’m allowed to say is that it came down as an order from the executive branch.” Then he muttered something almost, but not quite, unintelligible.
I nodded. “My thoughts exactly.”
Thus I made it my mission, while visiting southwest Florida, to talk to other people who live and work there. Two of those people were iguana hunters who work for the community of Bonita Bay. (I’ll write more about those guys next week.) They told me it was still the Gulf of Mexico in their minds. Ditto for the checker and the bagger at one of the many Publix grocery stores along that part of the coast, both of whom said they would never–not ever!–call it the Gulf of America. At a seafood restaurant in North Naples, where the shrimp tacos were out of this world, the waitress looked at me as though she didn’t quite understand the question. Then she said, “I just call it the Gulf.”
Safe answer, that.
It’s true that, as years pass, place names change. Take Nashville, for instance, which was first called the Big Salt Lick. Heck, once white settlers subjugated or completely wiped out the Native Americans who populated this land we now call the United States, we changed place names at will. Including “Denali,” the highest peak in North America, which was changed in 1917 to honor the late President William McKinley (who had no connection to the mountain or to Alaska), despite outcry from those who lived there. In 2015–at the request of the Alaska governor, state legislature and the Athabascam tribe–the U.S. Department of the Interior officially changed the name back to Denali.
Donald Trump reversed that change on his first day back in office. “President McKinley made our country very rich through tariffs,” he proclaimed as he signed the executive order. That’s the day he changed the name of the Gulf of Mexico, too.
What a mess we’re in. What a terrible, terrible mess.
(Jennie Ivey is a Cookeville writer. Her email is [email protected])