This lake debate gets really deep
We’re all wet.
You might be, too.
If you call that big, beautiful body of water Lake Coeur d’Alene, you’re sunk. That’s not its proper name, as an alert reader recently pointed out.
“[Friday’s] lead front page article refers to Lake Coeur d’Alene. Have you ever heard of Lake Liberty in our region? Lake Hayden? Lake Fernan? Lake Hauser? Lake Rose? Of course not. They don’t exist. We live near COEUR D’ALENE LAKE. There is no LAKE COEUR D’ALENE in our area. It’s embarassing [sic] that your staff don’t know that.”
It is embarrassing that most of us did not know that. And the writer gave us several sources to back up her Coeur d’Alene Lake claim, including this indisputable case-closer from the U.S. Board on Geographic Names: https://on.doi.gov/2uE9aaD
The kind of newsroom conundrum that keeps bars in business surfaced like a literary leviathan: What the hell do we do? Do we keep referring to it as Lake Coeur d’Alene, as locals have been calling it since at least the 1940s, or do we go with the scientifically accurate but awkward-to-the-ear Coeur d’Alene Lake?
After much discussion, passionate debate and a swig or two, we floated our boat on the surface of status quo. All aboard Lake Coeur d’Alene!
Being guilty of knowingly printing something that we now know to be inaccurate adds fuel to the fake news movement. But at least we’re consistent in our hypocrisy. The U.S. Board on Geographic Names will not recognize a place called North Idaho, nor will most people outside North Idaho. Neither will you easily find agreement among North Idahoans about exactly where the region’s precise boundaries might be. But it is a capital letter-worthy term that many here embrace with familiarity, if not a hint of pride.
Newspapers should state the facts, and we are today submitting that the proper name of your beloved body of water is Coeur d’Alene Lake, not Lake Coeur d’Alene. But newspapers also reflect, like late afternoon sunshine on shimmering water, colloquial terms that everyone in that readership area understands and appreciates.
Everyone in North Idaho, anyway.