LAKE LOUISA HISTORY

Location: Lawrence and Nightingale Townships

Officially Named: by Geographic Board of Canada. 15th Report

"The name of this beautiful lake appears on the plan of a survey of the Madawaska River watershed by John A. Snow in 1954.

One story: "Named after a member of a local trapping family" (Dawber 1994, 34).

According to Ralph Bice of Kearney the name Louisa was that of a member of the Sawyer family. The Sawyers settled first near Peterborough and later at Maple Lake, Haliburton County, trapped throughout the area for many years previous to the establishment of Algonquin Park. One of the family, Jim Sawyer, was an early Park ranger. It is impossible now to confirm this origin of the name.

Many old timers pronounce the name "Louise" and it is possible that a patriotic surveyor intended to honour Queen Victoria's daughter, Princess Louise, who was born in 1848 and after whom Lake Louise in Alberta was named” (Source: Friends of Algonquin Park (1993) Names of Algonquin: stories behind the lake and place names of Algonguin Provincial Park. Whitney, Ontario: The Friends of Algonquin Park.)

The above information came from: Discovering the (Hi)story of Haliburton Through Its Lakes' Names by Elinor Whidden, a student report prepared for Trent University- Bioregionalism Course, 1998. From the U-Links Centre for Community-Based Research Collection.