Galt’s aldermen had a trick up their sleeves: they asked if their recommendation could be a write-in option.

Their thinking was that most voters from Galt would write in ‘Galt’ and the province would reconsider the ‘no Galt’ rule.

The province said no.

It was decided that the citizens would choose the city’s name, with each town allowed to put one name on the referendum ballot.

Hespeler moved first, suggesting Cambridge. This harkened to Cambridge Mills, which is what Preston was called before it was called Preston. Preston backed this idea too.

I’ve explained how Kitchener and Waterloo acquired their names, but what about Cambridge?

You might know that it only dates back 52 years, but you might not realize that it contains a nod to local history or that, like Kitchener, it was selected by a vote of its citizens…

The Waterloo Township of 1816 doesn’t really line up with anything on today’s map. It’s mostly Kitchener and Waterloo, with bits of Cambridge and Woolwich.

But the name has survived, now as both a city and a region in roughly the same place.

In 1816, the map of Upper Canada was redrawn to create Gore District. Inside that district was Block Two, which the government was ready to incorporate.

Although most people in Block Two were German, the provincial power brokers were British and wanted the area’s new name to reflect that.

Only two of the six options received any real support, with Kitchener’s 346 votes beating out Brock’s 335. (Another 163 ballots were spoiled in protest, while the four other name options received a combined total of 48 votes.)

Here’s how @therecord.com (then the Berlin News Record) reported it.

Four of these names had appeared on the 1913 list.

New were Adanac (Canada spelled backwards) and Kitchener, a late addition honouring Lord Kitchener, a British general who had just died at sea. These days he’s best known for popularizing concentration camps as a military tactic.

This led to a second vote a month later, in which citizens were asked to choose between Adanac, Benton, Brock, Corona, Keowana and Kitchener.

Suddenly, a lot of people viewed the Germans in their midst with suspicion. Whose side would they be on?

In 1913, civic leaders drew up a list of 113 potential options for renaming Berlin. Some of them still look reasonable today. Others, less so.

The city now known as Kitchener was dubbed Ebytown by European settlers. That name gave way to Berlin in the 1830s as more German immigrants arrived in the area.

Those immigrants and the mainly British arrivals nearby co-existed peacefully for decades. Then came the buildup to World War I.

Six weeks ago I saw Victoria Mboko play a Wimbledon qualifier on a court where the only seats were reserved for coaches and tournament staff.

I don't think she'll be playing many more matches in those conditions.

The top four stories on the CBC Manitoba news site right now are about forest fires that have led to evacuation orders for four different communities.

To be clear, that's four separate fires affecting four different places. I've never seen anything like this in northern Manitoba.

"C-list Blue Jays prospects of the mid-1990s" was fun.

People in 2025: "Remember when the news only covered stories that were actually important?"

The news in 1929:

Weirdly, Wikipedia pages for a bunch of KW restaurants have sprung up over the past year.

No idea what the selection process or notability requirements are but whoever is behind this seems to be making some solid choices.