To First Nations that named Lake Ontario, Trump’s threat doesn’t hold water

EXPLAINER To First Nations, Trump’s threat doesn’t hold water ‘Lake America’ proposal irks the people that called it Ontario centuries before Europeans did the same MATTHEW FRANK THE GLOBE AND MAIL PUBLISHED 57 MINUTES AGO SATELLITE VIEW OF GREAT LAKES VIA SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY, REUTERS CONNECT 1 COMMENTS SHARE SAVE FOR LATER 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…