Talk:Kawartha Lakes

message: As a Bobcaygeonite for many years, and having done a fair bit of research on the matter, I can finally explain the origin of the word Kawartha.  In the 1950s, Bobcaygeon was experiencing a bit of a tourism slump.  Up until the 1940s, the many of tourists coming to Bobcaygeon were from Ohio, Michigan, New York and many other places - these people coming to town on the Canadian Pacific Railway from Toronto and beyond.  
By the 1950s, the automobile and a much-improved highway system was starting make its effects felt: people were changing their travel patterns, and instead of coming to Bobcaygeon for weeks on end, they could flit about almost anywhere a tank of gas could take them.  The Canadian Pacific Railway pulled up their stakes in Bobcaygeon in 1957.  
The town fathers looked around them and tried to figure out what other places had that Bobcaygeon did not.  At this time, the Muskokas were really taking off.  Many many people would rush into the Muskokas for a weekend, but not much of that traffic was coming our way.  So a delegation from the town council, headed by Ab Bottom travelled to Curve Lake to have a talk with the elders there.  They asked for a cool indian name to call the area.  
Ka-wa-tha is what they came up with (Land of Shining Waters.)  They came back to town, and happily began spreading around the new title for their lakes:  the Kawathas.  As you have pointed out, the Ojibwa have no "R" sound in their language, hence the Kawatha.  The Bobcaygeonites (and many Americans) also had problems saying it as delivered, so some enterprising individual in the Bobcaygeon Chamber of Commerce added the "R" after a couple of years.  If you don't believe me, go up to Coboconk.  There is still a business there called "Kawatha Garage" and no it is not a typo!!!
So, there it is.  Kawartha was a Bobcaygeonism, and Anglicization of a made-up Ojibwa word, so all that you hear perpetuated that Kawartha is a Peterborough thing, is really a bunch of bunk.  I think that Peterborough has only recently learned how to properly spell their name, the common usage was Peterboro, no?
As for "We Love Beavers," well that goes without saying, but perhaps someone could come up with the Ojibwa word for "Fresh Great Blue Heron Tracks Through a Big Pile of Osprey Poop on a pile of sand"  Now THAT would be impressive.
Cli0019 11:56, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I can verify that garage name... Although I'm pretty sure it has since been rebranded as Coboconk Auto (Repair?) when new owners made it into a used car lot. I'm going up next weekend so I will double check. Can you get any official sources that backup these claims? (Even a pamphlet from the bobcaygeon tourist booth is something instead of nothing) -- ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 18:42, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, I just stumbled upon a 1930-1931 Ontario road map that has the entire area labeled as the Kawartha Lakes. Might defeat the validity of this claim. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 01:47, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Further, reading through Ontario Place Names from University of Toronto Press, 97, the term was coined by Martha Whetung of the Curvy Lake reserve in 1895. However, it backs up the idea that promoters subsequently added the 'r' and changed the meaning to "bright waters and happy lands." - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 13:01, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Kawartha - A Bobcaygeonism: 

message: The area has many beavers around, which has lead to the nickname "We love Beavers", in an attempt to out-odd the Newfoundland town of Dildo.
This seems like nonsense to me - I don't think the beaver population in Kawartha Lakes is abnormal for Central Ontario; "We love Beavers" is not really a nickname; who is supposed to be making this so-called attempt? (certainly not city officials); is Dildo, Newfoundland the pinnacle of Canadian oddness? I'm eliding it, but I haven't lived there in some time, so please correct me if this is actually an established fact. Zander 12:05, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  

message: The name "Kawartha" does not sound like it is Ojibwe and some sources I came across said Wyandot, so on the Kawartha lakes pages, it was chaged back in November of 2006 to reflect that. Now, thinking about it, though it still does not sound like an Ojibwe word, I thought of a possible Ojibwe etymology.  Could someone please find and source the region's name?  If it really is Ojibwe, it might be something like Gaa-waasagamaag ("place where the lake-water is bright / is shining / have white-caps") and was corrupted down to its present name.  In general, since the Mississauga Ojibwe language in the region was one of the earliest documented Ojibwe (such as by Evans and by Sommerfield), both clearly recorded Ojibwe of that region did not have any "r" or "th" sounds, though often "r" is used in English to denote lengthening of a vowel.  Just a thought.  CJLippert 00:38, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've come across this from Basil Johnston's Anishinaubae Thesaurus (2007): "Gau-wautae-gummauh glistening body of water; Kawartha Lakes, Ontario."  Seems like my guess was close, but if his pronunciation were to be put in Fiero orthography, it would be Gaa-waategamaag (grammatically, should have a final -g to go with the gaa-).  I will adjust the Kawartha Lakes, Ontario and the Kawartha lakes articles accordingly.CJLippert 00:17, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  name etymology 

message: *Do not merege. Why would you merge the article about the City with the article about the lakes just because they have the same name? The lakes do not lie wholly within the boundaries of the city -- they go into neighbouring counties. Ground Zero | t 02:45, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Merger

message: I've noticed that many of the listed communities are in neighboring counties. Can we please clean this up to only include communities within the boundaries and CDP of Kawartha Lakes? Seagrave for example is clearly to the east of Simcoe street, placing it within Durham. Preferably only communities with growth beyond a main drag of houses (Ie. at least a store and a street) should be listed, and many of the Corners and Landings should be removed or moved into a sperate list that includes all the unincorporated communities, hamlets, ghost towns, and abandoned post offices. -- ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 00:49, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  List of communities 

message: Noting that many of the communities in Kawartha Lakes either were redlinks or had unreferenced (and sometimes incredibly poorly-written, to boot), I would like to propose an alternative model for writing about them. I call it the Sudbury solution, because it was the approach that solved a similar mess for that set of articles.
The approach would be as follows:
* Instead of each individual community having its own permanently unreferenced stub, concentrate on the places that were incorporated municipalities prior to their amalgamation into today's Kawartha Lakes: Lindsay, Bobcaygeon, Fenelon Falls, Omemee, Sturgeon Point, Woodville and the townships. All of those articles will be able to be referenced to at least one valid source without difficulty, and most of them already contain an area map pointing out approximately where the place is (which is more than any of the unreferenced community stubs had.)
* Smaller communities, instead of being redirected to the city as a whole or standing alone as unreferenceable stubs, would be redirected to whichever municipality they were part of until such time as a properly referenced article can be written. This also has the benefit that even if a properly referenced article is never written about the community, the community's name still links to something; given the relatively small number of editors who have sufficient expertise in the area, it also means that there would be a far more manageable number of articles to work on and to monitor for vandalism and such. (What would you rather have on your watchlist, 15 articles or 70?)
It is, however, important to note that the "inherent notability" of places does not mean that a community is exempt from WP:RS or entitled to keep an unreferenced stub; it means that a place is valid as a potential topic for a properly referenced article. The references are still a requirement, and an article about an "inherently notable" topic can still be deleted or redirected if proper references aren't forthcoming. Having ten or fifteen decent articles would suit both our needs and our readership's needs far more than having sixty bad stubs. Sure, the ideal would be to have a high-quality article about every community, but if we have to choose one or the other we need quality first, not quantity. Bearcat (talk) 04:11, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: This is my intention once I cleanup WP:ONRD a bit. I have the bare skeleton for an article on Victoria County to cover the history of the region, then I plan on having an article for each of the former townships that now make up the larger city of Kawartha Lakes. These no longer exist, but more or less make up the ward boundaries for the city and divide it evenly. Those will serve as a list of the former constituent villages and hamlets. Finally, a select few towns have a good history to tell (Kinmount, Burnt River, Norland, Coboconk, Kirkfield, Fenelon Falls, Victoria Road, Oakwood, Sturgeon Point, Lindsay and Bobcaygeon). The remainder are saved for last. Most are absolutely nothing when you drive by on the road, but yet they are marked with a name on every map. The only place they exist is in history. Former post offices now served by rural routes, or former railroad stops that grew into bustling markets and fell without a trace. WP:DEADLINE applies here, and this is one of my main points of interest. It will get done in time, and even if it doesn't, I have the references ready in the other articles if some other willing soul comes along to fix these stubs. If you're going to redirect, merge the information into the redirected article. Make a mess, it can be cleaned up - These aren't heavily trafficked articles, and I have all of them on my watchlist. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 20:32, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Communities 

message: Imagine what would happen if all the city pages in Ontario were redirected to the Province of Ontario page.
Several business owners,and organizations in communities within City of Kawartha Lakes, have reported not being able to list their addresses on Facebook due to Facebook not recognizing their community exists. After much examination of the problem, it seems connected to redirects of Wikipedia pages to City if Kawartha Lakes. Case in point - Yelverton,Ontario. See Facebook Yelverton,Ontario
Please do not redirect articles about physical locations to City of Kawartha Lakes. 
In addition, redirecting pages in Wikipedia can decrease your reach.
It would be much better to develop each community page, and link it to the City of Kawartha Lakes Page.
Yrhelper (talk) 14:52, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: You should probably bring this up on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Canada; not many people are likely to notice it here. If there is a consensus from discussion there to create stand-alone articles for all of these locations, then we can follow your suggestion. Bear in mind, though, that this is really a Facebook issue, rather than a Wikipedia one. It's Facebook's interpretation of Wikipedia's data that is causing the problem, not Wikipedia's data itself. You might want to bring this up with Facebook tech support if you haven't done so already. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 16:04, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redirects Causing Mapping Problems for Businesses and Organizations 

message: I have posted about the problems these redirects are causing, as it may be more than a Canadian issue.
Facebook is not misinterpreting Wikipedia information.If you view Facebook source code, you will see,Facebook Places pages are automatically created, based on Wikipedia's information. Facebook may be only one place where the redirects on Wikipedia are creating havoc. Any site like Facebook,that automatically creates pages about places based on Wikipedia will have erroneous information, about City of Kawartha Lakes municipalities. It is important to maintain the validity and recognition that Wikipedia has obtained as a credible source of information. A redirect is used to indicate that one thing is the same as another. Bobcaygeon, is not the same thing as City of Kawartha Lakes, just as City of Kawartha Lakes is not the same thing as Ontario. nor Ontario the same as Canada. Places which have a mailing address need to each have a Wikipedia page.  Yrhelper (talk) 13:37, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Redirects Causing Wikipedia Loss of Authority

message: The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:
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Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 19:28, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion 

message: The redirect Argyle station (Ontario) has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at  until a consensus is reached.  Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 10:24, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  "[[:Argyle station (Ontario)]]" listed at [[Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion|Redirects for discussion]]