Since before European settlers arrived, that big expanse of water at the mouth of the Genesee River has been Lake Ontario.
Or something to that effect.
But on Tuesday, amid his escalating trade war with Canada, President Donald Trump mused on social media that he was “seriously considering” renaming it Lake America — implying the name of the lake is tied to the Canadian province, instead of the other way around.
In truth, Lake Ontario — like many of the Great Lakes — got its name centuries before the province came into being.
“Ontario is an indigenous name. It's an anglicization of an Iroquoian word ... but it means something like great water, or big shining lake, something along those lines,” said Daniel Macfarlane, a professor at Western Michigan University who teaches about environmental sustainability and water.
His research has focused on the history of U.S.-Canada border waters, namely the Great Lakes. His latest book, “The Lives of Lake Ontario,” is something of a clarion call to focus attention on the lake — not its name, but its waters.
“One of the points I try to drive home when I've talked about Lake Ontario is that it's arguably more polluted and more degraded now than it's ever been in its history,” he said. “But we don't seem to realize it. ... Neither side, including Canada, are doing anywhere close to what they're supposed to be doing in terms of living up to, say, the Great Lakes water quality agreements, stopping pollution.”
But instead of that issue, the current focus is on renaming the lake we’ve neglected — for America.
“The United States is giving serious consideration to changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America,” Trump posted, “in that we don’t expect to (be) doing much business with Ontario any longer.”
The president made the post just before 7 a.m. Macfarlane woke to messages from friends and colleagues on both sides of the border.
“I laughed out loud and facepalmed,” he said, “... because it's just so ridiculous.”
Worth noting: The majority of the lake’s surface area is in Canada, and even if the United States were to decide it was calling it Lake America, there is nothing to compel Canada to do the same.
“It doesn't even make logical sense,” Macfarlane said. “The Canadian side of Lake Ontario just dwarfs the New York side in terms of population and things like that. That's the Canadian heartland. That's the most populated area of Canada. ... So, I mean, Lake Ontario, I would argue, is much more important to Canada and Ontario than it is to the United States.”
Macfarlane is Canadian and used to live in Ontario. He currently is on a fellowship at the University of Michigan, and he spoke at the University of Rochester this past spring.
He said the lake and its inflows and outflows have been a source of friction between the two countries — from the construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway to the remaking of Niagara Falls for hydroelectricity, to regulating water levels.
Only once in its known history has there been a serious attempt to name the lake anything other than Ontario.
“The French, when Lake Ontario was part of New France, did try using the appellation of, you know, Lake Frontenac or Lac Saint Louis,” Macfarlane said of the name that appeared on French maps into the mid-1600s. “But that never stuck.”
Doubtful this will, either. Rochester is the largest U.S. city on the shores of Lake Ontario, and Mayor Malik Evans is neither interested nor amused by the talk of changing its name.
“I have given no thought, whatsoever, to the president’s latest publicity stunt, threatening to rename Lake Ontario,” the mayor said in a statement released Tuesday afternoon. “This is just another attempt to distract the public from critical issues that deliver undue harm to low-income and middle-class consumers and small business owners.
“Rather than take the bait, I will continue to focus my attention on building partnerships and developing measures to counteract the runaway cost-of-living increases that the unnecessary war and regressive tariffs are imposing on vulnerable residents and job creators on both sides of the border.”
