American navigation company is not changing Lake Ontario to ‘Lake America’ after Trump’s executive order. Here’s why

Navigation app MapQuest has put up billboards across Canada and the U.S. detailing directions to Lake Ontario, in its latest act of defiance against U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive order renaming the body of water to “Lake America.”

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The app collaborated with creative agency Quality Meats to install the billboards, and the company shared in an email with National Post that the six-foot posts have been erected in six cities: Toronto, Chicago, New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.

The designs recreate details from old-school MapQuest printed directions — the company having launched in 1996 as one of the first mapping services on the web — with old highway icons, a banner advert and a long URL running across the bottom of each page.

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Canada’s billboard is located at 43 Lower Jarvis Street, in Toronto, and includes just one page of directions, as opposed to the other cities’ three pages, owing to its location near the shore of the lake.

Meanwhile, Chicago’s board is found at State Street and Hubbard Street; Los Angeles’ is on Main Street in Santa Monica; and New York’s board is on East 38th Street; San Francisco’s board is at 490 Brannan Street and Washington D.C.’s board is in the northwest quadrant of the District at Dupont Circle.

MapQuest’s new campaign comes after the company previously confirmed it has no intention of using the name “Lake America” in a social media post, after Trump’s Aug. 27 executive order directed the Department of the Interior to update maps and databases to reflect the new name.

Both Google Maps and Apple Maps have adopted the name change for users based in the U.S., but MapQuest’s refusal to do the same resulted in a surge of people downloading the app in support of its stance.

In an email to National Post, MapQuest said it has since reached number one in the U.S. App Store in both the navigation category and overall, surpassing two million downloads as the app’s usage rose to roughly 50 times the normal amount.

In a recent interview with CNN, Doug Berger, general manager of MapQuest, said he has been “blown away” by the response.

When asked what he would do if Trump were to ask MapQuest to change the lake’s name, he said: “We’re fully committed to our users right now, and the users are showing what they believe in by downloading our app.”

He added that MapQuest’s recent actions were not intended to be a political stance, but to give people the names of lakes that they’re familiar with. “It’s fun that we’re talking about geography,” he said.

The company also expanded a feature allowing users to rename Lake Ontario within the app themselves, building on a tool it first launched after Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico in February 2025. It’s now selling Lake Ontario-themed merch, too, including a sweater with “We’re not changing it” written above a graphic of the lake and a tote bag and T-shirt reading “It’s Lake Ontario on MapQuest.”

Meanwhile, Robert Corradino, a Republican and mayor of Oswego, a city in New York State on the shore of Lake Ontario, has also taken a stance against the name change.

He previously told National Post that his community is taking the renaming of Lake Ontario “very personally” and said Oswego won’t alter any signage, tourism materials or official communications to reflect the new name.

In Canada, Ontario Premier Doug Ford erected a new Lake Ontario sign at a cost of $25,000 in Winona, Ont., shortly after Trump signed the executive order.

Unveiling the sign in a video posted on X, Ford said: “Long before President Trump, this lake was called Lake Ontario. And long after President Trump is gone, it will still be called Lake Ontario. But just in case President Trump or anyone else forgets, we have set up a sign to remind them, it’s Lake Ontario now and forever.”

More recently, B.C. has unveiled plans to install signs at its border crossings informing travellers that they are entering territory that is “NEVER the 51st state” in a rejection of Trump’s rhetoric around Canada.

The worsening of relations between Canada and the U.S. comes after a breakdown in trade negotiations between the two countries last month, which saw 50 per cent tariffs on Canadian goods imposed on Aug. 22, followed by Canadian counter-tariffs which came into effect on Tuesday.

Later that day, Trump unveiled a series of executive orders banning certain Canadian goods, including some dairy products, motorcycles and alcoholic beverages, from being imported to the U.S.

Elsewhere, the U.S. president appeared to suggest renaming New Mexico to “New America” in a post on Truth Social over the weekend, while David Maloney, a Republican congressman from Pennsylvania, plans to put a resolution before the U.S. House of Representatives urging the renaming of Lake Erie to “Lake Pennsylvania.”

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