By Joel Thurtell
Canada’s geographic names board says a little lake in McGregor Bay where some of us have cottages is not called Patten Bay.
They are wrong.
I just got a note from Zoe McDougall saying her request to name the lake after Thaddeus Patten, her great-grandfather, was denied by the Ontario Geographic Names Board.
Thaddeus Patten surveyed much of northern Ontario including McGregor Bay in the early 1900s.
Afraid they’re too late.
The board had a chance to rubber-stamp fact, but instead they issued a denial, which amounts to fiction.
For Patten Bay is what we cottagers who live on that body of water are calling the place, regardless of rulings by the Geographical Names Board of Canada.
Mrs. McDougall put them in a bind.
On one hand, while no place in McGregor Bay is named after Thaddeus Patten, at least two other Ontario lakes bear his name.
On the other hand, the geographic names board had to be aware that time is on Mrs. McDougall’s side.
They specifically mentioned a Patten Lake near Killarney.
A third Patten Lake may seemed a bit over the top to the names board.
If so, it raises the question of how many times can you name a lake the same thing before it’s too many?
The answer may surprise you. In fact, if not in policy, there is no practical limit to the number of times you can recycle a place name.
The situation must have been perplexing to board members. They couldn’t win if they played by their rules.
There is about her quest a certain sense of inevitability.
People don’t play by the board’s rules.
Once Mrs. McDougall, who lives in McGregor Bay year round, began calling the lake that laps the rocks outside her house Patten Bay, and once she started holding her annual “Patten Bay Potluck” for everyone with a cottage on Patten Bay, well, Patten Bay began to sound like the real name of a real place.
Patten Bay.
An article about her quest in The Manitoulin Expositor (written by yours truly) made a printed record of Mrs. McDougall’s effort to place Patten Bay on the map.
It’s no stretch to say that all of us who own cottages on Patten Bay are calling the lake we swim in, fish in and drink from Patten Bay.
As the habit catches hold, more and more people beyond Patten Bay are calling it Patten Bay.
Patten Bay already is the name of the place, whether geographic naming officials recognize it or not.
I have to laugh at the thought that there might be too many places name for Patten.
How many would be too many?
For the Detroit Free Press a few years ago, I did a study of lake names next door to Ontario, in the state of Michigan.
Ontario has a way to go before the number of Patten Lakes and Patten Bays would top the number of lakes in Michigan that share a name.
The champion is Mud Lake.
How many Mud Lakes do you think there are?
264!
Second place goes to Twin Lakes — 124.
Or how about Long Lake? 77. Bass Lake: 69. Round Lake: 58, Grass Lake: 46.
Duplication was never a problem to the pioneers who settled Michigan in the 1800s. They liked “Cranberry” so well they hung the monicker on 44 lakes.
They got mixed up so often so often they named 34 lakes “Lost.”
“Lost” well describes the geographic names officials. This is a case they can’t win.
I’d advise Mrs. McDougall to give it a few years, then go back to the board.
Just in case tradition isn’t enough for the bureaucrats, I’d put a big sign alongside the lake that says Patten Bay.
Send a photo of the billboard to the board.
Here’s what they need to know:
They can erase a place from their map, but they can’t stamp it out of our minds.
Patten Bay is here to stay.
Drop me a line at joelthurtell(at)gmail.com
