Long before European explorers landed on North American soil, it was Indigenous people who named many of the Great Lakes.
Longhouses and communities dotted the shores of Lake Ontario, whose name originates from the Iroquois word meaning “beautiful lake” or “sparkling water.” When a contingent of explorers charted the lake in the mid-17th century, they adopted the Indigenous name they heard and inscribed it on maps. While French explorers initially used other names, such as Lac Frontenac, it was Lake Ontario that stuck. That name for the lake, which is split along the Canada-U.S. border, hasn’t been touched for nearly 400 years.
U.S. President Donald Trump is threatening to alter that narrative. On Tuesday morning, as the trade war between the neighbouring countries continued to escalate, Mr. Trump said in a social-media post that the U.S. is considering renaming the body of water that laps onto the shore of its namesake province and New York State as “Lake America.”
Samuel de Champlain had not yet seen any Great Lakes himself when his expedition made this map of ‘New France’ in the 1610s. Some lakes, like the one shown in the detail, are only roughly described by travelling distance, not named.
U.S. Library of Congress
Among the Haudenosaunee Confederacy – which Champlain fought in 1609 at a lake now named after him – the root word of ‘Ontario’ means sparkling or beautiful water. Champlain’s interpreter Étienne Brûlé was the first European to see Lake Ontario in 1615.
U.S. Library of Congress
On a French atlas from 1755, the Great Lakes have the same names as today. France ceded its Canadian territory to the British in 1763 with the end of the Seven Years’ War.
U.S. Library of Congress
While Mr. Trump does not have the power to compel other countries – including Canada – to recognize a name change, experts and Indigenous leaders say such a threat imposes American nationalism and erases Indigenous identity.
Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte Chief R. Donald Maracle said Mr. Trump’s threatened name change is an “attack” on Indigenous people. His community, located roughly 190 kilometres east of Toronto, is 20 kilometres from Lake Ontario.
“It’s a lot of politics involved in the whole trade discussions, and our culture should not be eroded in that process or our rights,” Mr. Maracle said in an interview.
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Renaming bodies of water is not new to U.S. President Donald Trump, who last year gave an executive order to call the Gulf of Mexico the ‘Gulf of America.’JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images
Mr. Trump passed an executive order last year to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America.” While the U.S. federal government refers to the body of water by the new name, it isn’t universally recognized.
He can use that power again to rename Lake Ontario, but Canada isn’t compelled to acknowledge or adopt it, according to Daniel Macfarlane, an environmental historian and geography professor at Western Michigan University.
Industry Minister Mélanie Joly said during a Tuesday news conference that “we’ll always call it Lake Ontario.”
(When asked for a response to Mr. Trump’s post, Audrey Champoux, spokesperson for the Prime Minister’s Office, said in an e-mail: “Nothing to add.”)
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The lake is at maximum about 85 kilometres wide; swimming across the border is a gruelling marathon, but possible. Only a few dozen have succeeded.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
All bodies of water shared by Canada and the U.S. are governed by the International Boundary Waters Treaty Act signed in 1909.
The treaty formed the International Joint Commission, an independent, impartial binational commission that co-ordinates transboundary water issues.
However, the commission has no role in naming any shared bodies of water, IJC spokesperson Sarah Lobrichon said in an e-mail.
The treaty specifies that the Governor-General can add, delete or amend the names of transnational water bodies, at the recommendation of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. The province where the water body is located must also be consulted before a decision is made.
Asked about Mr. Trump’s latest comments on Tuesday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford dismissed the post as “a lot of rhetoric.”
Canada also has a national body called the Geographical Names Board of Canada that’s responsible for co-ordinating the assigning of new names.
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R. Donald Maracle, a long-serving chief of the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte, sees Mr. Trump’s threat as an ‘attack’ on Indigenous people who were not consulted.Ryan Carter/The Globe and Mail
The history of Mr. Maracle’s First Nation can be traced back hundreds of years to the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, also known as the Iroquois League, which joined six nations together in the early 18th century.
Mr. Maracle said Mr. Trump should consult with Indigenous communities before floating new names for lakes.
Derek Alderman, a geography professor at the University of Tennessee, has studied Mr. Trump’s efforts to change landmark and place names.
The targeting of Lake Ontario follows a broader trend of Mr. Trump attempting to erase Indigenous culture, he said, citing the renaming of Mount McKinley from Mount Denali in 2025, also through an executive order.
“Place names are not bargaining chips. They’re not meant to be pawns or weapons in these sorts of tit-for-tat struggles,” Prof Alderman said from his office in Knoxville, Tenn.
He said the President uses place names, such as Lake America, to exert influence and extend an “America-first ideology” across the continent. Prof. Alderman said even threatening to change the name to Lake America can be damaging. “When you change a name so abruptly and so unilaterally, with really little public discussion, to what extent are you introducing a situation where people are having the way they see the world disrupted, and that is a psychological cost, as well as educational cost,” he said.
James Conolly, an archaeology and anthropology professor at Trent University in Peterborough, Ont., said reconsidering place names is sometimes necessary when it doesn’t reflect a community, but “Lake America” is a “nonsensical proposal.”
Lake Ontario’s name preserves the linguistic connection to Indigenous people within Canada that predated any colonial powers, he said.
“‘Ontario’ belongs to a much deeper history of the Great Lakes than the modern international boundary running through them,” he said in an e-mail.
Prof. Macfarlane, who is also a senior fellow at the University of Toronto, couldn’t hold back his laughter when he saw Mr. Trump’s threat.
“It’s so ridiculous. Not only the idea of it, but also the reason why he would do it,” he said.
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Mr. Trump’s name proposal has gotten puzzled reactions in Toronto, which rang in Canada Day with fireworks at Woodbine Beach last month.Arlyn McAdorey/The Canadian Press
Prof. Macfarlane, who is Canadian, said both countries previously “patted themselves on the back” about the boundary waters treaty and held it out as an example for the world to emulate.
Lake Ontario was vital for early Canada-U.S. trade before the 19th century when rail lines were built. People at Fork York, in present-day Toronto, would send ships loaded with wheat, tools and fish to the Americans in exchange for charcoal, Prof. Macfarlane said.
Now, Mr. Trump’s threat is symbolic of the deteriorating trading relationship that used to be a strength across shared waters, he said.
As a ship was getting unloaded at the docks near Toronto’s Sugar Beach on Tuesday, Ian Charlton grabbed a chair in his regular spot under an umbrella to enjoy lunch overlooking Lake Ontario.
While Mr. Trump’s claims of renaming the lake are attention grabbing, the 56-year-old said it’s the wrong approach when trying to rile up Canadians.
“These outbursts, if you can call them that, do the opposite to the citizenry,” he said.
“It unites us.”
With a report from Jeff Gray
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Keito Newman/The Canadian Press
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