Republican congressman wants to rename Lake Erie to Lake Pennsylvania

A man fishes from a breakwall on the shores of Lake Erie in Cleveland in this file photo. (Tony Dejak/The Associated Press)Social SharingFirst Lake Ontario.

A republican congressman from Pennsylvania wants to change the name of another Great Lake.

On the heels of U.S. President Donald Trump signing an order to rename Lake Ontario, Lake America, Rep. Congressman David Maloney of Pennsylvania wants to change the name of Lake Erie to Lake Pennsylvania.

A gaggle of Canadian Geese enjoy the open Lake Erie water near the U.S. and Canadian border in a file photo. (Joe Traver/Reuters)In a statement put forward earlier this week, Maloney said it’s about the lake’s “modern identity,” and that he’s preparing a resolution to put before the U.S. House of Representatives — urging the president, Congress and the U.S. Secretary of the Interior to invoke the change.

“Pennsylvania has only one Great Lake and maybe it is time we put our name on it,” it read, stressing the importance of fishing and tourism the watercourse has on how people move around the lake and rely on it.

Rep. Congressman David Maloney is from Pennsylvania. (Republican Congressman David Maloney)Trevor Jones is the MPP for Chatham-Kent—Leamington in Ontario. A portion of his riding stretches along the Lake Erie shoreline. When contacted by CBC News, his office said he would not be providing any comment about the proposal at this time. 

The office for the same riding’s federal representative, MP Dave Epp, said he was unable to provide a comment or an interview due to prior commitments.

Maloney says Ohio already has plenty of shoreline, while New York has two Great Lakes — with Canada having four others. Michigan is the fourth state that touches Lake Erie.

“Pennsylvania has one. Let’s call it Lake Pennsylvania!”

Ken Drouillard is a University of Windsor professor who teaches a course on the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement.

He says renaming places with strong historical significance, such as the Great Lakes, serves to break those connections.

“We ultimately become poorer for this loss,” he told CBC News.

“Names are more than just labels on a map, they connect us to place and history,” added Drouillard, who’s also with the university’s Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research (GLIER). 

A boat enters Lock 4 of the Erie Canal in Waterford, N.Y., in 2015. The Erie Canal was an engineering marvel when it opened in 1825. (Mike Groll/The Associated Press)He says similar to Lake Ontario, Lake Erie’s name has its roots in First Nation naming conventions that predates both the U.S. and Canada.

“Beyond this, renaming Lake Erie undermines the rich historical context that Lake Erie has played, particularly in the early westward migration and settlement of the U.S. Midwest."

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"The Lake Erie Canal was the first major inter-basin diversion connecting Lake Erie to the Hudson River and the New York City Port on the Atlantic Ocean. Would renaming Lake Erie necessitate renaming this historical canal entirely enclosed in a different state?”

The name Erie is a short form of the Indigenous word erielhonan, which translates to “long tail.”