Boundary Waters Quetico Forum :: Listening Point - General Discussion :: Lake Names
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Jeriatric |
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Jeriatric |
The version of the story which accompanied the photo is that the owner of a logging camp married a 15 year old girl. The following winter, she fell through the ice and drowned. Mr. Hall then buried her on the highest point of an island. The marker was still there in August of 2007. |
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The Great Outdoors |
Three that come to mind: Tin Can Mike used to be Murphy Lake, Cyprus used to be Ottertrack, and Slumber Lake used to be Gangster Lake. I believe that old Ely outfitter, Bill Rom, named a few lakes after his family, Becky Lake, Barb Lake, Roger Lake.(Close to the Man chain) Don't know if these names exist anymore, but they were marked as such on older maps. |
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airmorse |
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andym |
Definitely info that would be fun to have in a field guide. |
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upper iowa |
Who, when, how?? And speaking of how, how did they come up with some of those names? |
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funinwinton |
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lilcowdoc |
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canoe212 |
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snakecharmer |
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Bannock |
Tin Can Mike was named after Mike Murphy (thus the former name of Murphy Lake). Apparently Mike Murphy always carried and used a cup made from a tin can and got the nickname "Tin Can Mike". One of the more interesting ones is what is now called Paulson Lake. It Used to be JAP Lake. Notice that JAP is all capital letters. That is because it was initials, I believe for John and Ann Paulson. Well some map maker "fixed" the mistake of all capital letters and changed the name to Jap Lake. Latter it was deemed pollitically incorrect and changed the name. Thank goodness someone knew the history and the name was changed to Paulson. |
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HighPlainsDrifter |
And the South Kawishiwi River did not exist on the 1928 map. It was called Birch River. And that gets me thinking that construction of the low head dams near Lake One created the unusual split in the main channel of the Kawishiwi (near Lake One) into North and South Kawishiwi River. (keep in mind that the river is flowing toward Highway 1) I am a big fan of the Kawishiwi |
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inspector13 |
Yes, an old European classification of fish with oily flesh. I first heard something about it in some biology class, and it was reconfirmed when a friend asked a ranger at Porcupine Mountains in Michigan why there are rivers there called Big and Little Carp Rivers. |
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burntsider |
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Mike5914 |
quote herb0021: "quote Jackfish: "quote Pirate: "First off... its you're; second, insula is Latin for island." No it has not - check your second sentence. Response. |
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emptynest56 |
Makwa-bear Waboose-rabbit Ogishkemuncie-kingfisher(as previously mentioned on BWCA.com} Kekekabic-rock ledge at waterfall Gabimichigami-probably a derivation of "big lake" as in Michigan In Itasca County there are: Big and Little Dick Lakes, Pughole, and Jack the Horse Lake. |
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Jackfish |
quote Pirate: "First off... its you're; second, insula is Latin for island." Pirate, if you're going to criticize someone else's spelling and/or punctuation, I would suggest taking care of your own first. Your use of the word "its" in your criticizing of someone else's post is spelled incorrectly. It should be "it's" since it's a contraction of "it is". |
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herb0021 |
quote Mike5914: "quote herb0021: "quote Jackfish: "quote Pirate: "First off... its you're; second, insula is Latin for island." Bahhh...I knew I should have spell checked before submitting. I see at least two more errors in my response... |
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Speckled |
quote sotaman: "JAP lake why they ever changed it I dont know.It is now Paulson lake and Trygve explained it to me that J A P was the initails of the person it was named for and now it is called Paulson the last name or intitial from J A P. JAP stood for James and Ann Paulsen. |
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1lookout |
Saganaga.. Lake of Islands in Objibway,. Little Long Lake was Shagawa and Shagawa it was something like Kashapiwi? It's on old maps. Ottertrack was Cypress. Miles Island on Seagull after my relative Uncle Miles. I heard one time the Vegatable Chain was named by the same surveyor who screwed up Bower Trout, and only ate certain Vegatables on certain days, Then he went to Swollen Ankle. Funny is Twin Lakes N of Gm, if you fly over 1 is blue,the other green! I used to know this stuff, maybe I'll look back into it! wonderful thread! |
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nctry |
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Basspro69 |
quote Pirate: "First off... its you're; second, insula is Latin for island." First off this is bwca.com, not a college writing class, maybe 5 of the thousands of members on this site care about perfect spelling, punctuation,syntax and the like. Class is out, no need to correct anyones assignment paper here. |
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HansSolo |
Per Kevin Callan's "Wilderness Quest" video, Shan Walshe Lake in Quetico Provincial Park was named for Quetico Park Naturalist Shan Walshe after his death in 1991. Shan Walshe was the Quetico Park Naturalist from 1970 until his death in 1991 at age 55. The majority of specimens in Quetico's herbarium were collected by Shan Walshe. He identified and described the ecology of the 650 species of vascular plants found in Quetico Park. Shan, wife Margie, and four children lived in a log cabin on French Lake in Quetico Provincial Park from 1974 to 1991. He left behind a legacy of research, botanical slides, photographs, herbarium specimens, and many stories. (Information re-printed from wwww.northernontarioflora.ca/biography) Hans Solo |
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Basspro69 |
quote schweady: "quote Basspro69: " Class is out, no need to correct anyones assignment paper here." LOL , Yep it was :-) |
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Basspro69 |
quote Arlo Pankook: "Johnson lake, that never gets old." :-) |
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rtallent |
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gsfisher13 |
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Basspro69 |
quote sotaman: "JAP lake why they ever changed it I dont know.It is now Paulson lake and Trygve explained it to me that J A P was the initails of the person it was named for and now it is called Paulson the last name or intitial from J A P. It was changed because that name has negative connotations for a certain ethnic group. |
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Pirate |
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Kevlar |
I had heard that the timber cruisers named a lot of the lakes, but clrose explains the why of it. And a little complaint: Do we really need to correct another member's misspellings or grammar? That kind of thing could discourage a person from contributing again, and then we lose their input. |
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schweady |
quote Basspro69: " Class is out, no need to correct anyones assignment paper here." anyones ? :) :) :) had to be on porpoise. :) :) :) |
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Arlo Pankook |
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inspector13 |
quote PINETREE: "The most out of place name? Why Carp lake on the Canadian border?Really weird and was there even carp anywhere in the U.S. when it was named?" Sometimes the meanings of words change over time, Pinetree. The lake was indeed named after a type of fish found in that lake, but now that type of fish is known as trout. |
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PINETREE |
quote inspector13: "quote PINETREE: "The most out of place name? Why Carp lake on the Canadian border?Really weird and was there even carp anywhere in the U.S. when it was named?" Not doubting you, just curious where did you get that info? That must be some european thing? |
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ILikePike |
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CabSauv |
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L.T.sully |
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Jonroy |
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clrose |
As Lewis and Clark traveled the Upper Missouri, they named inflowing streams and lakes after their relatives, party members, or girlfriends. When they ran out of girlfriends, they named rivers after politicians (President Jefferson and other supporters). The streams had native names, of course, but they were recording the land for the first time for their culture; identifying the landmarks was essential. However, few of the names survive on subsequent maps due to the long delay in printing their journals. French-Canadian explorers like La Verendre faced a similar problem when traveling through the Quetico-Superior and used a similar solution. Lakes were given descriptive names (Rainy Lake for the mist at its waterfall outlet), named for their shapes, to honor sponsors, and for girlfriends. On a 1975 canoe trip on Lake of the Woods, my troop had a similar problem. Most of the islands had no names at least on the map, so (lacking girlfriends) we named the islands after ourselves. Filling the blank spots on the maps was important to all kinds of people. During written history, several cultures have come and gone in the Quetico-Superior canoe country. The first natives recorded were the Dakota (called Sioux by their enemies) who yielded the unproductive but picturesque land to the Cree and Ojibway in the 18th century who had moved in from the east. There were a number of skirmishes in the area, but the Dakota seemed to give up the area much more quickly than other areas such as central Minnesota. The Ojibway were armed with fur trade rifles, but to some that explanation is insufficient. Forest ecologists Clifford and Isabel Ahlgren speculate that the hunting culture Dakota were dependant on large prey such as caribou, moose and deer. The forest shifted to large pines that were less suitable to those deer; the Ojibway culture was better adapted to the new landscape. The Ojibway were more mobile hunter-gatherers and preferred birch bark covered wigwams to Dakota hide covered teepees. Since native tribes did not have a written language, their maps were mainly mental, names were passed on by oral tradition As a result, their lake names were often long and descriptive. Batchewaung is Ojibway for “a current going through narrows.” Kahshahpiwi translates to “the lakes flows through continuously,” another translation says “long, narrow lake with high cliffs.” Even Ojibway language experts have trouble translating current names as the sounds to European ears and the spellings are not always accurate. Voyageur names still dot the map and define the fur trade routes. Deux Riveres (two rivers), and Maligne (bad) are some examples. Many place names are English versions of earlier names including Knife Lake (after the hard, fine grained rock that was quarried by the natives for cutting tools), Curtain Falls was “rideau” in French. As different cultures moved through, the map names changed. One of the next groups to leave their mark was the loggers. Many of the small lakes away from the main canoeing routes needed names so everyone involved could communicate. It’s possible that some of the female lake names (Alice, Bernice, Fran and others) came from the wives and girlfriends of these isolated men. The Quetico Park also honored World War I soldiers by naming (off the beaten path) lakes after them. Examples include Devine, Fluker, Montgomery, Belaire, Tubman, Tario, and Wilbur. Bush pilots are represented by Curtis, Ptolemy, Reid, and Swartman. The Quetico also has a tradition of naming lakes after park personnel. Art, Atkins, Halliday, Payne, Lemay, Hurn, Buckingham, Dettbarn, Quinn, Rawn, and Valley were all Quetico rangers. Naturalist Shan Walshe received this honor after his 1991 death. A Friends of the Quetico booklet states “This previously unnamed lake, remote, surrounded by stands of old pine at the end of difficult portages was the kind of place that Shan loved.” Of course, naming lakes after plants, animals, and geologic features was also common. Local lore varies on how certain lakes were named. Bill Magie was an Ely canoe guide, surveyor, and logger. In the book Wonderful Country (edited by Charlie Guide David Olesen) Magie states: “One time, my boss told me, ‘Name some of those places!’ So, we did. Hurn Lake, that’s named after Walter Hurn, the ranger at Kings Point. Jeff Lake is named after a ranger at Ottawa Island. MacKenzie and Ferguson were surveyors that were working’ on the park survey. Delahey Lake-I was the guy started naming’ it Delahey. Delahey was the head Quetico ranger then. I wrote him one day, I says, ‘Why don’t you name some of those lakes? There’s three or four right in the center of the park that haven’t got a name.’ Veron was his first name. He named ‘em after himself!” Well, he probably didn’t have a girlfriend. Note: other sources say that Delahey’s first name was George. Depending on the map scale, there may not be room to print the names of all the map features. As a result, officially named lakes get additional names from paddlers including Charlie Guides. Lakes with double or even triple names from various sources include Darky/Spirit, Fishhook/Earl, Donna/Irene, Argo/Trout, Tuck/ Caribou, Brent/Infinity, Pine/Island/ Nym, and Sanctuary/Lemay/Jenny. There are probably a few wives and girlfriends in these mixtures. When Charlie Guides first started traveling in Manitoba, many of the lakes were unnamed, at least on the map. So Lunch Lake became the name for the resting spot in the middle of the Obukowin chain of portages, Scout Lake is our float plane cache, Hot Dog is a long, skinny lake, and even though we don’t know the translation, Wapeskapek just seems like an endless lake. The Manitoba program started in large part due to Real Berard’s canoe route maps. In the Boundary Waters, we can travel on Lakes One, Two, and Three. From his first maps on, Berard has predominantly used place names from the native Cree, Sasaginnigak Canoe Country or Katunigan Route. “And doesn’t that sound better than a number for a lake?” he asks. Some Lake Name meanings and origins Amik - Ojibway for Beaver Bitchu - Cree for Lynx Blackstone - Leader of the last permanent residents of the Quetico, at the mouth of the Wawiag River. He died in 1919 trying to get help when the Ojibway group suffered an influenza epidemic. In the spring, the few survivors were moved to the Lac La Croix reservation. Cutty and Sark - a fast sailing clipper or maybe after the whiskey named for the ship. Kawnipi - Ojibway for where there are cranberries. Keewatin - Ojibway for where the north wind blows from. Chatterton, Keats, Shelley - 18th- 19th century English poets. Pooh Bah, Ko Ko (Falls), Yum Yum - Characters in the Gilbert and Sullivan opera The Mikado. Nym - a character in Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor. Lac La Croix - translates from French to lake of the cross, explorer Sieur de la Croix drowned there in 1688. Tanner - after John Tanner, stolen as a young boy in Kentucky to take the place of a Shawnee mother’s dead son, he became famous by his Indian name “White Falcon.” He was shot and left for dead on “his” lake, but was rescued by passing Voyageurs. Last, but not least Quetico - A name of uncertain origin, which one is correct? I don’t know. A. version of a Cree word for benevolent spirit B. French for searching for route to Pacific “Quete de la cote” C. Ojibway for “bad, dangerous” D. short for Quebec Timber Company. References used: Lob Trees in the Wilderness by Clifford & Isabel Ahlgren, A Wonderful Country by Bill Magee, Lake Names of the Quetico Provincial Park published by The Friends of the Quetico Park, The Map Maker by Carole Bhakar and Judy Lord in Manitoba Nature magazine. |
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sotaman |
I liked JAP had a good ring to it that fit getting to that lake if you ask me anyway |
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TuscaroraBorealis |
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PINETREE |
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herb0021 |
quote Jackfish: "quote Pirate: "First off... its you're; second, insula is Latin for island." Okay, I think I can keep this going. Jackfish, in the second sentence of your respnose, you state the use of the word "its" is spelled incorrectly, which technically is not correct. You can't misspell an action. He misspelled the word "its", not the use of the word "its". You should have stated that his use of the word "its" is incorrect (with no refernece to the spelling). By the way, I hope you take no offense, I just thought I would keep the chain or correction going. Has the chain ended? :) |