Erasing Lake Ontario

This week, my grandchildren went to school excited to learn new information, but their teachers were confronted by a geographical dilemma. Do they teach about the new name for our Great Lake, Lake Ontario, by honoring the executive order renaming it Lake America or do they teach about it by honoring centuries of local indigenous history surrounding the name.

Kathy Castania, a founding member of Wayne Action for Racial Equality (WARE) and former Sodus teacher, recently shed some light on the two choices by sharing with me a recent letter to the Rochester City Council. In it, her fellow Rochester Indigenous People’s Day Committee member, Trish Corcoran (Onödowá’ga, bear clan), wrote.

“Words are powerful. Naming is power. Colonizers and bullies use this tactic continually. They also exhibit zero creativity nor sense of place. Lake Ontario predates all of us on either side of the "border". Lake Ontario "Beautiful shining lake", was named by the Wyandot Nation long before anyone from Europe stepped foot on Turtle Island, long before there were borders. The Peacemaker was Wyandot; he paddled across Lake Ontario bringing the Haudenosaunee the Great Law of Peace. Perhaps he named her? If so, she's had that name for about 1,000 years, certainly it could be longer.”

As a teacher with a half-century experience, the choice is easy. Honor the name Lake Ontario by sustaining the teaching of the accurate history and democratic contributions of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy to their neighbor, the United States of America.

Jim Wood

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