Making Sure “Lake America” Never Happens Here

I think we all know “Lake America” isn’t a real thing, and it’ll never be a real thing.

After the American President’s August 27 order to rename Lake Ontario, the name appeared on mapping services. Google Maps shows “Lake America” to American users and “Lake Ontario” to Canadians. Apple adopted the American label a few days later.

Lake Ontario has been Ontario for centuries. No amount of Sharpie is going to change that.

But its digital representation did change. An impulsive decision in the White House changed how millions of people see a shared place. It’s silly, egotistical nonsense. It also tells us who holds the power.

What this means for Antigonish

Here in Antigonish, we should ask who gets to control how we find and understand our own community.

After four months of the Reel, I can tell you that much of our local information lives on Facebook. Antigonish increasingly understands Antigonish through technology that we simply have to trust is working in our interests. Too often, it is built to keep us scrolling instead of making sure we know about the flooded highway between us and home, or the perfect Christmas gift at the shop down the street.

If Facebook disappeared in Canada tomorrow, could you still reach your friends, family, customers, or community? If Google Photos vanished, would your family photos and videos go with it? If a service your business relies on changed the rules or shut off access, what would happen next?

Businesses, organizations, institutions, and governments increasingly need American-owned platforms to tell people what is happening. Those companies decide what people see, and what it costs to reach the people who already chose to follow you.

That’s a lot of trust to place in companies whose responsibility is to shareholders, and whose leadership has shown it is willing to fall in line with a White House that treats Canada like an unruly colony.

Keeping control here

Digital sovereignty can sound abstract, but it comes down to control. Do we have enough control over our data, technology, and digital infrastructure that important decisions affecting Canadians aren’t entirely made somewhere else, in the interests of non-Canadians?

This doesn’t mean Canada needs to build a replacement for every American product. American and international services will remain useful, often excellent. A maple leaf on a website doesn’t automatically make a company better, more affordable, or more trustworthy.

But resilience, choice, and meaningful control are sensible things to want from any service we depend on. When Canadian hosting and services meet the need at a fair price, choosing them helps build Canadian capacity and gives us another option. I’m hoping to highlight practical alternatives over the next few months.

That’s part of the thinking behind the Antigonish Reel. I built it to make everyday local information easier to find in a space built and controlled here in Antigonish. It’s my contribution to a stronger local digital infrastructure.

The Reel will need to grow beyond me, adapting to this community’s needs and becoming a place we can rely on to act in our interests.

No amount of Sharpie ink can define who we are.