According to the president of the Seneca Nation, President Donald Trump’s executive order to rename Lake Ontario to Lake America is more than merely controversial: It flies in the face of a 232-year-old treaty—and social media thinks mapping platforms like Google Maps are just as guilty.
Last week, Trump signed the executive order, directing the Interior Department to change the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America. It’s an apparent step in his ongoing trade fight with Canada. Earlier in August, the United States imposed 50% tariffs on hundreds of Canadian goods, which prompted Canada to do the same, with 50% tariffs on U.S. goods set to go into effect in September.
Before signing the order, Trump posted on Truth Social that the U.S. was considering changing the name of the lake as “we don’t expect to be doing much business with Ontario any longer.”
But what Trump saw as a dig toward Canada ignores the origins of the word Ontario, which far predate the name of any province, lake, or modern North American country.
‘Blatant disrespect’: How Trump’s order ignores history
A day after Trump signed the order, the president of the Seneca Nation, J. Conrad Seneca, released a statement claiming that Trump’s move violates a treaty signed by George Washington in 1794.
The Treaty of Canandaigua established, among other terms, “peace and friendship” between the U.S. and indigenous nations, including the Seneca Nation. It also noted that the Seneca Nation’s boundary begins “on Lake Ontario.”
Seneca alleged that Trump’s order “violates that peace, friendship and commitments of the Canandaigua treaty,” reflecting “blatant disrespect toward the Seneca people.”
“This is the latest in a long history of willful attempts to disregard the United States’ commitments to the Seneca and other Haudenosaunee nations,” he continued. “President Trump needs to be reminded of those commitments.”
Seneca also pointed to the indigenous origins of the lake’s name. The word “Ontario” comes from the Wendat word “oniatarí:io,” which means “lake of shining waters.” In traditional Seneca language, the lake is called “sga:nyodai:yoh,” meaning “beautiful lake.”
“The President cannot assert ownership over our culture or erase it through irresponsible political action. His order should be rescinded, and the name Lake Ontario should be left as it is, reflective of the Seneca people, other Haudenosaunee nations and all Indigenous people surrounding the lake,” Seneca said.
“To us, Lake Ontario is not a political pawn,” he continued. “It does not separate the countries of the United States and Canada. It is all Indigenous land, which has been occupied by Indigenous people since time immemorial.”
Seneca also highlighted that Article 6 of the Constitution refers to treaties as “the supreme Law of the Land.”
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney also commented on Trump’s executive order, pointing out that Lake Ontario’s name “is more than 400 years old, predating both the Confederation of Canada and the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America.”
“We know that America is changing. Their trading relationships, their foreign policies, their national monuments, their hydronyms,” Carney wrote in a post on X. “Canadians also know that naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario—then, now and always.”
‘Genuinely pathetic stuff’: Google catches the heat
Google was the first major mapping platform to acquiesce to Trump’s order. Users in the U.S. will see the lake labeled as “Lake America,” while users in Canada will still see “Lake Ontario.” Users in other countries will see both names.
Other leading map platforms, including Apple Maps and MapQuest, still show the lake as “Lake Ontario” on their maps.
One viral post showed a screenshot from Google Maps showing the change to Lake America, calling the platform “so fucking embarrassing” and “genuinely pathetic stuff.” It’s garnered 4.9 million views.
A response to that post, itself earning 1.3 million views, claimed that Google is “actively violating tribal rights with the Seneca Nation by doing this.”
“Tech companies quietly accepting something so outrageously false makes me scared for when a government really goes hard with historical revisionism,” worried a third user.
In response to Fast Company’s request for comment, a representative for Google pointed to the company’s blog post on the change. The post explains that Google Maps reflects “official government sources,” which in the U.S. means the Geographic Names Information System. Since the GNIS changed the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America, Google followed suit.
“These updates follow our long-standing policy for bodies of water with names that vary from country to country, and are starting to roll out now,” the post concludes.
The backlash is similar to that faced by Google after Trump signed an executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America in 2025. Then, too, Google followed Trump’s lead and changed the name of the gulf on its maps—though as a private mapping company, it’s not obligated to use the president’s preferred names, even if they’re made official by the GNIS.
