On a beautiful summer afternoon at Southwick Beach along Lake Ontario in Jefferson County, the sun is shining, and the waves are crashing gently against the shoreline.
Veem Dehal sat on a rock at the edge of the lake, soaking up the sun while he watched his son play in the waves. He heard about Trump’s executive order that renames this body of water Lake America.
“That’s funny!" He said, laughing. "You can’t change the name of everything - it’s been like this forever,' he said.
Dehal is a nurse from Syracuse and said he works with a lot of Canadians.
“We were all laughing last night. People will not call it Lake America anyway; we’ll still call it Lake Ontario.”
Last week, President Donald Trump signed an executive order renaming the Great Lake after new 50% tariffs on Canadian goods took effect and a potential trade deal between the two countries collapsed.
In response, Ontario Premier Doug Ford unveiled a giant billboard on the Canadian shoreline over the weekend, with the message "Lake Ontario — Now and Always."
“President Trump can call it whatever he wants. But I can tell you the rest of the world will always call it Lake Ontario," Ford said in a CBC broadcast.
Most residents reject "Lake America"
Roger Wait said he thinks the name change is a "joke" as he stepped out of a restaurant in the town of Henderson.
"It's Lake Ontario. I'm 69 years old, and when I die, it'll be Lake Ontario. Because why would you change the name of the lake? Not to be crazy political, but there's a lot of other things going on in the world right now, and worrying about Lake Ontario being the Lake of America, it's a waste of time," he said.
Just up the coast at a marina in Henderson Harbor, a group of friends were up for the weekend gathering fishing supplies.
Tyler Dellina, a Republican, said he doesn’t think changing the name is necessary. But he doesn’t care if it offends people.
“Things change all the time; road names get new names, towns get new names, different halls get new names. At the end of the day it is what it is. If you don't like it, change it. Go out and vote. If you do like it, vote again,” Dellina said.
His friend Johnny Gause, an independent, said he thinks the name change is "petty."
"There's bigger things to be thinking about that can actually change what's going on here in the US. There's so many more important things," Gause said.
For the past year and a half, President Trump has targeted Canada in a trade war, now with new 50% levies. There were tense trade negotiations to try and avoid them, but Canada left the table and imposed its own tariffs on many U.S. products, including steel and dairy. Trump then lashed back with the name change.
"We don't expect to be doing much business with Ontario any longer," Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
Working outside on the docks, Kara Rousseau said she gets why Trump put the new tariffs in place for better free trade deals. But as someone who’s grown up working on the lake for 40 years while her parents operated a motel, changing the name is not OK with her.
“It’ll always and forever be Lake Ontario," Rousseau said. "I think he does it for himself and the attention because he’s narcissistic and arrogant and he doesn’t think of what us as Americans actually feel.”
Gary Zehr is a Trump supporter and also grew up along Lake Ontario. He said changing the name is funny because it’ll get under people’s skin. But he’s not calling it Lake America himself.
"Do I really want it changed? No. I don't see any importance to doing that. Unlike the Gulf of America, I'm fine with that."
His friend Brian Melas is originally from the area, but just moved to Tampa, Florida, along the Gulf of Mexico, which Trump similarly changed to “Gulf of America” last year.
"We wanted to check out the Gulf of America and see if anything's changed. It hasn't. It hasn't. All right. It's still the same old Gulf of Mexico, trust me," Melas said.
Kathleen Kohanski spends every summer working behind the register at a general store on the marina. She said that changing the name deeply offends her.
“Lake Ontario, it belongs to everybody. From fish to people to birds to wildlife. It’s not an individual's decision to change it. I answer the phone, ‘Henchen's Marina, Lake Ontario... Because that’s what we are,” she said.
Kohanski said that Lake Ontario is home and comfort to her and many people, and that she will forever share the name with her Canadian neighbors across the lake.