Lake Ontario: ‘Then…now…and always!’

Changing the name of Lake Ontario is a hairbrained idea.

One supposes the American side of the lake could technically be called something other than Lake Ontario…but why? What’s the point of stirring up controversy?

When you look at the boundary between Canada and the United States, the line runs pretty much east to west across the middle of Lake Ontario, but a tad more of the lake lies on the Canadian side.

 

The National Museum of the Great Lakes in Toledo, Ohio, reports that Lake Ontario, as the easternmost of the five Great Lakes, is the smallest in surface area, with 7,340 square miles. About 53% of Lake Ontario is in Canada while the United States lays claim to about 47%.

And by far, the lakeside population in the Province of Ontario, Canada, is much greater than the population on the U.S. side in New York state.

 

Toronto, Ontario, with an estimated population of 3,358,275 is the fourth largest metropolis in North America, trailing only Mexico City, New York City and Los Angeles. Chicago is fifth in size.

 

The largest U.S. municipality on Lake Ontario is Rochester in Monroe County, N.Y., with a population of about 204,935.

“The New York side, by comparison, is sparsely populated and largely rural,” reported Dr. Daniel Macfarlane, a professor at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. 

“The lake is Canadian in every way that matters. No U.S. executive order can change that,” he said.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer told Kevin Brannigan of the Northeast Times, a weekly newspaper published in Bensalem Township within Bucks County, Pa., that generations of American students have learned the names of the Great Lakes by the mnemonic HOMES – Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie and Superior. (That’s a common clue familiar to crossword puzzle solvers as well.)

 

The Milwaukee (Wis.) Journal Sentinel reported that if Lake Ontario falls by the wayside and is replaced by Lake America, students may need to be reeducated about SHAME – Superior, Huron, America, Michigan and Erie. For now.

Brannigan also reported that Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers has shared a video of himself, jokingly (we think) changing the name of Lake Michigan to Lake Wisconsin, signed on a restaurant napkin.

 

It’s gotten ridiculous…but it’s also being hurtful. Canada’s government leaders have responded to defend their national honor…and rightfully so.

Edward Helmore of The Guardian, published in London England, said the rallying cry has become: “Lake Ontario. Now and Always.”

 

“Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney has flat-out rejected the renaming, explaining that Lake Ontario derives from an Indigenous Wendat word meaning ‘the lake is beautiful, the lake is great’ that dates back more than 400 years.”

 

Wendat Nation Grand Chief Pierre Picard criticized U.S. President Donald Trump for his “attempt to erase Indigenous history. I want to tell him that it is unacceptable for us, as a nation.” He cannot “eradicate our history, our culture and our identity.”

 

Ryan Mancini, a staff writer with The Hill, a political website based in Washington, D.C., said that Ontario Premier Doug Ford called the entire hydronyms scenario “so, so disappointing, because I love the United States. I love the American people. Canadians love the American people.”

 

J. Conrad Seneca, president of the Seneca Nation – one of the six Native American nations of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy) in upstate New York – has called on Trump to rescind the order.

 

Seneca said it clearly violates the terms of the 1794 Treaty of Canandaigua, signed by leaders of the confederacy and President George Washington, which laid out the Seneca Nation’s boundaries as “beginning on Lake Ontario.”

The Associated Press reported that Seneca accused Trump of showing “blatant disrespect” for the Indigenous people who gave Lake Ontario its name in the first place and lived in territory around and along the lake long before the creation of either Canada or the United States.

“The president cannot assert ownership over our culture or erase it through irresponsible political action,” Seneca said.

The Iroquois Confederacy or the Haudenosaunee (People of the Longhouse) was made up of five tribes: Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga and Seneca originating from New York. In 1722, the Tuscarora tribe, who came from North Carolina, joined the Confederacy as the sixth nation.

 

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul offered her assurance that her office is not budging and will continue to refer to Lake Ontario as Lake Ontario.

 

U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell of Michigan said she intends to introduce a bill in Congress, if necessary, to keep Lake Ontario as Lake Ontario. “The Great Lakes are a shared treasure that generations of Americans and Canadians have worked together to protect,” she said.

 

In a recent column in The Washington Post, Dr. Macfarlane, author of the book “The Lives of Lake Ontario: An Environmental History,” called out the White House for yet another aggressive verbal assault…one meant “to disparage and pressure Canada over tariffs and trade agreements. I highly doubt that lobbing this grenade had much serious forethought.”

“Moving too hard against Canada is likely to boomerang, inciting global outrage as well as domestic pushback from Canada’s many American friends,” Dr. Macfarlane said.

If there’s an upside, “it might bring more attention to the plight of Lake Ontario. This lake is arguably the most polluted and degraded of the Great Lakes – and the most degraded it has ever been,” he said.

 

“A litany of environmental insults has been poured into it: microplastics, sewage, forever chemicals and toxics. Humanity has radically altered what lives and swims in its waters,” Dr. Macfarlane asserted.

 

“In the 1970s, Canada and the United States signed the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. Though initially successful, neither country has continued to adequately fund the efforts made through this accord. Lake Ontario needs more cooperation, not conflict.”

The document was signed in 1972 by U.S. President Richard Nixon (center) and Canada’s Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau (right). Also shown is U.S. Secretary of State William Rogers.