The Renaming of Lake Ontario: A Strange Presidential Executive Order from Canada’s Southern Neighbour
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) informs visitors to its website that the “Great Lakes are, from west to east: Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and America.” For the sake of those who have yet to catch up, Lake America is a new name for an existing Great Lake. Executive Order 14422, titled ‘Honoring the American History of the Great Lakes and Renaming Lake Ontario as Lake America’, was signed at the Oval Office on 27 August 2026, and is only part of a renaming frenzy that is sweeping Trump’s America.
There is apparently a rationale for this action, apart from Trump’s desire to punish Canadian officials who “have treated us very badly” and engaged in retaliatory dollar-for-dollar tariffs. To quote from the order: “With the deepest parts of the Lake’s waters lying within United States territory, the United States claims most of the Lake’s volume.” Besides, it “has long been an integral asset to American exploration, settlement, commerce and defence.” It now remains for Doug Burgum, Secretary of the Interior and former Governor of the border state of North Dakota, in coordination with the United States Board of Geographic Names, to “take all appropriate actions” to complete the implementation of this renaming within 30 days of the signing of the order. President Donald Trump is undoubtedly proud of what he has achieved, listing the renaming of this body of water among his many achievements during his one- hour-and 44-minute-long keynote speech on the first night of the inaugural Republican National midterm Convention at the American Airlines Center in Dallas on 10 September 2026.
To avoid any confusion, the name of Lake Ontario will be retained for the remainder of this discussion. This body of water is the easternmost of the five Great Lakes of North America, which together form the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth by surface area. The American shoreline of the Great Lakes is longer than the US East, West, or Gulf coasts individually. The Great Lakes are bordered by eight American states (Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York) and two Canadian provinces (Ontario and Quebec).
The Great Lakes are interconnected by straits, canals, locks, and river, and ultimately drain into Lake Ontario. The Niagara River carries water from Lake Erie to the western end of the lake, while the St Lawrence River drains from the eastern end of the lake into the Atlantic Ocean. The Saint Lawrence Seaway, an American-Canadian navigational project constructed between 1954 and 1959, enables large ships to convey cargo for a total distance of 2, 340 miles, from the commercial port of Duluth (Minnesota) on Lake Superior to the Gulf of St Lawrence. Major commodities transported via the seaway include iron ore, iron and steel, agricultural produce, and manufactured goods, explaining the economic importance of the Great Lakes to both the US and Canada.
Lake Ontario gained its name from an Iroquoian word meaning “lake of shining waters”, in use since at least the 1640s and adopted by European explorers from the 1650s onwards. The province of Ontario, founded in 1867, takes its name from the lake. A change of name that has survived for more than four centuries would most certainly disrespect its Huron Indigenous origins. The lake forms part of the international border between New York state and Ontario province. It is the smallest of the Great Lakes, with a surface area of 7, 340 square miles. Lake Ontario is 193 miles long, 53 miles wide, reaching a maximum depth of 802 feet. The Canadian shore includes the cities of Toronto, the nation’s largest city, and Hamilton. The American shore is mostly rural, with Rochester (New York) being the largest urban settlement.
The history of the Great Lakes has been marked by a spirit of American-Canadian cooperation, in keeping with relations between two allies with hitherto shared values and closely interlinked economies. The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (GLWQA), which identifies “shared priorities and coordinating actions to restore and protect the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the waters of the Great Lakes” was thus signed by both nations in 1972, and amended in 2012 in keeping with a commitment to “a shared vision of a healthy and prosperous Great Lakes region.”
The renaming of Lake Ontario can be best considered a somewhat pointless, not to say provocative, exercise of doubtful significance, at a time when America has much more pressing matters to consider. Hopefully, this will be a temporary aberration, unlikely to be adopted widely, apart from the US federal government, and by Google and Apple Maps for American users, and most unlikely to outlive Trump’s Presidency. For the time being, as Dion Lefler notes in The Wichita Eagle on 28 August, the memory aid HOMES (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior) will have to make way for SHAME (Superior, Huron, America, Michigan, Erie). Time will tell.
Ashis Banerjee