Lake of Shining Waters

Once again, America’s highest-ranking official decided to lend geography a helping hand—without relying on maps.

This time, he issued an executive order titled “Honoring the American History of the Great Lakes and Renaming Lake Ontario as Lake America.”

Indigenous peoples gave the lake a poetic name—the Lake of Shining Waters.

The French called it Lake Saint-Louis.

Other French explorers renamed it Lake Frontenac.

There were other names as well.

In 2026, yet another American official assigned it a new one—Lake America.

Over several thousand years, the lake has had many “owners.”

All the while, the lake simply carried on with its biological life.

People came, gave it a new name, and vanished from the face of the Earth.

Politicians came and went.

Many of them would no longer be remembered without consulting a history book.

Yet throughout it all, the lake has remained where it has always been.

Glittering in the sunlight.

Sometimes raging in a storm.

Displaying its independent spirit and strength.

And the fish have no idea where American waters end and Ontario waters begin.

G Un, 2026

Historical Note

In different eras, the lake and the surrounding territories were known by different names.

— Shining Water [kanadario]—one of the traditional etymologies of the name Ontario, associated with Indigenous languages.

— Lake Saint-Louis [Lac de Saint-Louis]—a seventeenth-century French name.

— Lake Frontenac [Lac Frontenac]—named after Louis de Buade de Frontenac, Governor General of New France.

— Cataraqui [Cataraqui; Katarokwi]—a name of Indigenous origin used by Europeans in the region.

— Ontario [Ontario]—a historic name of Indigenous origin that became established on European maps in the seventeenth century.

— Lake America [Lake America]—a name introduced in 2026 for official use by United States federal agencies.

Author: Gleb Ivlev / G Un