Nova Scotia Power fixes 'Lake America' on outage map

Nova Scotia Power fixes 'Lake America' on outage map

NSP says issue has been experienced by multiple organizations across Canada

Nova Scotia Power says it's fixed its outage map and Lake Ontario is now listed correctly after it showed the body of water labelled as Lake America.

The site joins a number of others in Canada in struggling with naming Lake Ontario after a recent executive order by U.S. President Donald Trump changed the name of the lake.

The issue has been experienced by multiple organizations across Canada, according to a statement from Jacqueline Foster, senior communications advisor for NS Power before they had fixed the name.

“We’re aware that Lake Ontario is currently being labelled incorrectly on our outage map,” Foster said, adding that it stems from a “third-party mapping service.”

A few hours after N.S. Power sent the initial statement, Foster said the utility has addressed the issue.

'Small features being scaled up to large features'

The utility’s map is powered by Google, which announced on Saturday it changed the name of the lake to Lake America in the States to “reflect name changes in official government sources.”

Google’s statement notes that Google map users in Canada will continue to see the original name and those outside of Canada or the U.S. will see both names.

Peter Johnson, associate professor of geography and environmental management at the University of Waterloo, said in an email that several organizations subscribe to the Google Maps application programming interface, or API, which allows a user to create their own customized map application on a website.

Johnson says the API brings in specific data from Google servers and updates names as they’re altered on the map. That data is then piped into the third-party maps that use the API.

Which is why someone living in Nova Scotia navigating to Google Maps directly can see the lake’s original name, since the browser can access your IP address and send you to a Canada-specific map, he said.

“Overall, what's happened here is just a matter of something that is very routine with small features being scaled up to large features,” Johnson added.

One alternative he suggested was using an alternative map API, like one offered by the global mapping company ESRI. Both New Brunswick Power and Maritime Electric on P.E.I. both use that company’s API and currently lists Lake Ontario with the correct name.

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Danielle Edwards is a reporter with CBC Nova Scotia. She has previously worked at The Canadian Press in Halifax and the Globe and Mail in Toronto covering a variety of topics. You can reach her at danielle.edwards@cbc.ca