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“We hope that the Dene people who live and work in that area will remember Nichola fondly as they fish and hunt in and around Goddard Lake.”

Both Goddard Lake and Lang Bay, which acknowledges Calgary Herald journalist Michelle Lang at another lake, are located east of Stoney Rapids in northern Saskatchewan.

Lang was killed on Dec. 30, 2009 when the armoured vehicle she was riding in hit a roadside bomb in Afghanistan.

Photo by Adam Sweet / For the Calgary Herald

Her mother, Sandra Lang, said they are delighted by the idea.

“She worked at the paper there,” she said, referring to her daughter’s time at the Regina Leader-Post and the Moose Jaw Times-Herald. “She loved Saskatchewan and she made some great friends there and we have some relatives there.

“It was just a charming idea of the government to think of that — to name mountains, lakes and bays after the fallen.”

Germann noted Lang is the only civilian to be memorialized at the Saskatchewan war memorial.

“We brought it to the attention of our advisory board that makes recommendations to our minister for naming geographic features in their honour,” he explained. “They considered this particular situation because she had worked in Moose Jaw and Regina as a journalist to be worthy of a form of commemoration.”

About 4,000 locations across Saskatchewan bear the names of individuals who have been recognized since the program began in 1947.

Others honoured this year included:

• Cpl. Jordan Anderson, who was killed by an improvised explosive device while he was on patrol in the Panjwaii district in July 2007 (Anderson Lake).