A small island near Little Sturgeon may need a new name after the U.S. Department of Interior declared a part of it to be derogatory. Squaw Island made a list of nearly 30 Wisconsin sites and nearly 650 federal locations with the term in its name. Squaw is considered a slur for Indigenous women. U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland first announced the plan last month to change the names of geographic places if they contained racial slurs. Interior Secretarial Order 3404 declares the term squaw derogatory and implements procedures to remove the term from federal usage, but what that means for the privately-owned Squaw Island is unknown for now after contacting Door County officials on Wednesday.

Earlier this year, the Wisconsin Geographic Names Council voted to change the name of Squaw Lake in Western Oneida and Vilas counties to Amber Lake. In a WXPR report, Wisconsin Geographic Names Council Carroll Schaal said public opinion or county approval on the name change did not matter and the name change is “acknowledging some of the past harm here and moving toward a greater inclusive society.”  The Dane County Board voted to change the name of Lake Monona’s Squaw Bay to Wicawak, the Ho-Chunk word for muskrat, in 2019. 

Map screenshot from MapBox