Some Canadian websites displaying “Lake America” on their maps powered by Google this weekend have reverted the name to “Lake Ontario,” a change the company said can be changed by web developers.
The issue first arose on Sunday when social media users noticed that maps on sites including Hydro One, Metrolinx, Elections Canada, Loblaw and Infrastructure Ontario all showed “Lake America” when zoomed out to view the Great Lake.
“For a brief period yesterday (Sunday), our outage map displayed an incorrect label for Lake Ontario as a result of an issue with a third-party mapping service,” said a spokesperson for Hydro One. “The issue was identified and corrected yesterday evening.”
That mapping service was Google Maps, identified by the copyright found on outage maps, store locators, transit stop finders and other mapping uses.
Global News confirmed these maps showed the “Lake America name.”
The new name came after U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order late this week amid the ongoing trade war between Canada and the U.S., and after Trump was heavily criticized by Ontario Premier Doug Ford last Monday.
Trump’s executive order says the U.S. lays claim to most of the “volume” of Lake Ontario and is mostly responsible for its security, economic activity and environmental stewardship.
Google said over the weekend that it updates its maps to reflect name changes from official government sources, which includes the U.S. Geographic Names Information Service (GNIS). The GNIS formally changed Lake Ontario to “Lake America” in recent days.
The company had said people in Canada would see “Lake Ontario,” those on Google Maps would see “Lake America” if viewing in the U.S, and international users would see “Lake Ontario (Lake America).”
But on Sunday, Ontario Public and Business Service Delivery Minister Stephen Crawford said on X that some of the government’s websites pull map data directly from Google Maps.
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“Following recent changes by Google, we’re actively reviewing our websites to make sure they all identify Lake Ontario by its correct name: Lake Ontario,” Crawford wrote.
As of Monday afternoon, changes had been made to some websites with Hydro One, Metrolinx, the LCBO, Elections Canada and Infrastructure Ontario. All of them display “Lake Ontario” once again.
In a statement, Google told Global News that website developers can change locations for their maps.
“Website developers who embed Google Maps on their site can select a region to localize the map, which determines how place names are displayed,” a spokesperson for Google wrote. “‘Lake Ontario’ will show when developers have set their region to Canada.”
Many Canadian websites that showed “Lake America,” have been fixed but how do Canadian websites end up with an American label?
It’s known as Google API, or application programming interface, according to tech analyst and journalist Carmi Levy.
“It’s a set of tools that developers use to create services more easily, more quickly, more cost-effectively,” he said.
Rather than having its coders create a location service for its store locator from scratch the LCBO, for example, would instead contract its map from Google and then adjust it to fit the Crown agency’s platform.
“It means you are now subject to the whims of the American company providing the technology,” Levy said. “If you do not change all of the settings, which clearly that did not happen here, your very Canadian website can look very American, much to the consternation of Canadian users.”
In most cases, he added, while Google is a U.S. company, it would not have factored in and so coders would not have changed the region to their apps.
Then the trade war hit.
“Now that Canadians are very sensitive to issues that cross the border, a slight technical change in how the API works, everyone is noticing and they’re noticing that it’s an American thing,” he said.
It’s not the first time Trump has applied a new name to a place with a longstanding title.
Last year, Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” and Google announced it had relabeled its maps, with Apple and Microsoft following suit.
As of Monday afternoon, Apple still had Lake Ontario on its Maps application. However, U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told Fox Business network that the president had contacted the tech company directly to ask them to relabel the Great Lake.
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