Iron Maiden‘s singer greeted a Scotiabank Arena crowd by naming the lake his band had just crossed, 48 hours after a U.S. executive order directed federal agencies to call it something else.
Bruce Dickinson opened Iron Maiden‘s Toronto show on August 29 with a line about the journey in. He used the lake’s long-standing name.
“Hello, Canada. Oh my God. It’s been traumatic. We got here. We crossed the Lake Of Ontario,” the singer told the audience at Scotiabank Arena, in a clip shared by SiriusXM Canada. The show opened the North American leg of the “Run For Your Lives” tour, which Iron Maiden brought to Toronto after more than a year on the road in Europe.
Two days earlier, U.S. president Donald Trump had signed an executive order directing the federal government to rename the lake Lake America.
Trump signed the order in the Oval Office on Thursday, August 27, flanked by boards showing a map with the new label. “This is official, effective immediately,” he said, adding that his administration had filed the necessary paperwork and notified the relevant parties.
The order says the new name honours “the American history of the Great Lakes”. It also states that with the deepest parts of the lake lying inside United States territory, the U.S. claims most of its volume, and describes the lake as a long-standing asset to American exploration, settlement, commerce and defence.
Asked what message the renaming was meant to send Canada, Trump said: “No message. As you know, Canada has been ripping us off for a long time on trade.” The order follows his January 2025 executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, and comes during a tariff dispute in which both countries have imposed reciprocal measures on billions of dollars of goods.
A U.S. president can change a geographic name for official federal use. He cannot dictate what other countries, international bodies, U.S. states or municipalities call it.
Canadian prime minister Mark Carney rejected the change the same day, posting on social media and responding separately in French.
“The name Lake Ontario comes from the Wendat word Ontari’io, which, appropriately, means ‘the lake is beautiful, the lake is big’. The name is more than 400 years old, predating both the Confederation of Canada and the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America,” Carney wrote. “We know that America is changing. Their trading relationships, their foreign policies, their national monuments, their hydronyms. Canadians also know that naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario — then, now and always.”
Lake Ontario borders the Canadian province of Ontario and the U.S. state of New York, the only American state on its shore.
New York governor Kathy Hochul said the state would not adopt the new name, writing on social media that New York would not be calling it that. Speaking to NY1, she said: “I’m speechless. It is so patently absurd. Shame on them for deflecting from the real needs that Americans are feeling that we have here in New York. The high cost of energy, prescription drugs, utility bills, groceries. And this is what the president spends his time on? Renaming a lake that was named after our Indigenous peoples. Shame on you.”
Rochester, the largest American city on the lake, went further. All nine members of its city council unanimously signed a proclamation on Friday committing the city to keep using Lake Ontario in all official local capacities, calling the order a distraction from the economy, housing and affordability. States and municipalities remain free to use the older name on maps, road signs and tourism material.
Iron Maiden returned to Scotiabank Arena for a second Toronto date on August 30, with Megadeth supporting, before Montreal on September 3. The North American run continues through late September ahead of dates in Latin America, Australasia and Japan, and marks the band’s 50th anniversary.
