by Fred Snyder, Ohio Sea Grant Extension

When French explorers and traders entered the Great Lakes region in the 1600s, American Indian nations already had given names to the immense bodies of water they lived along.  As reports and crude maps filtered back to Europe, these Indian names frequently were combined with names the French thought more appropriate.

Samuel de Champlain drew one of the earliest, still-surviving maps in 1632.  He labeled Lake Superior as Grand Lac, apparently in realization of its size.  Lake Huron was known as Mer Douce – French for “Fresh Sea.”  As would be the case until modern times, Champlain named Lake Erie for an Indian tribe living along its shore.  The “Neutrals” were a tribe on Erie’s north shore which had not taken a side in a conflict between the Iroquois and the Hurons.  Thus Erie became “La Nation neutre.”  And Lake Ontario appeared as Lac St. Louis.

Nicholas Sanson, France’s royal geographer, became noted for mapping the land of “New France.”  His creations of 1644 and 1650 depicted poorly labeled great lakes on the new continent, but his map of the Great Lakes region in 1656 set the standard for the day.

“Lac Superieur,” or the “upper lake,” acquired the name it still carries today.  More curious is “Lac des Puans” – today’s Lake Michigan.  The Fox nation referred to their neighbors on the Fox River and Lake Winnebago as “Ouinpegouek,” or “people of the stinking water.”  Rather than an insult, the name referred to the algae-rich waters nearby.  The French wrongly translated this into “stinking people” and shortened the name to Puan.  Sanson’s map notes Lake Michigan as “Lac des Puans,” the “lake of the stinking people.”

Lake Huron became “Karegnondi,” simply meaning “lake” in the Petan Indian language.  Lake Erie gained a new name from the people on the south shore.  These were a fierce people famed for wearing the skins of cats, a nation known to the Iroquois League as the “Erielhonan,” or the “long-tails.”  To the French, this nation - so recently annihilated by the Iroquois – was called the Erie, or “cat people.”  Sanson labeled the southernmost great lake “Lac Erie, ou Du Chat.”

Sanson adopted “Ontario,” an Iroquoian term for “beautiful lake,” for the most downstream great lake.  But he also nodded to Champlain and listed the inland sea as “Lac Ontario ou Lac De St. Louys.”

The explorer Joliet published a 1674 map in which he adopted other Indian names.  While Lac Superieur retained its name, Lake Michigan became Lac de Illinois, honoring a nearby Indian nation.  In a step toward modern times, Joliet renamed Karegnondi for another neighboring tribe and called it Lac de Hurons.

His Lac d’Erie also retained its name but the last lake in the chain was used to honor the governor of New France, Louis de Baude Frontenac.  Thus, Lac Ontario became Lac Frontenac.

A 1688 map by the cartographer Coronelli became the best of its day.  It attempted to consolidate the breadth of names and offered additional labels for some lakes in Indian dialects.  Lac Superieur carried the additional names of Lac de Tracy and Lake de Conde.  Lakes Huron and Erie carried their modern names along with a few sounded out from Indian names.  Lake Ontario carried its modern name along with that of Governor Frontenac.

Lake Michigan suffered extensive renaming. A previous map from 1675 by the Jesuit Allouez had listed Lake Michigan as Lac St. Joseph because of the St. Josephs River on its southeast coast.  Coronelli instead honored France’s dauphin (the King’s son) by giving Michigan the name “Lac Dauphin.”  Since Jesuit Father Hennipin had previously used the term “Michigonong” in describing the lake, Coronelli also used the Indian name “Michigami.”

As the 17th Century closed, the names of the Great Lakes came into more widespread usage – at least to French-speaking citizens - and became less prone to change.  When the British took over the region following the French and Indian War (1754-1760), the English language prevailed and the lakes retained the names they carry today.  Perhaps it’s all for the better.  Never again will a map refer to a beautiful great lake as “The Lake of the Stinking People.”