keith, you make a good point of Lyme emerging in Lyme, Conn. I read a story in Scientific American of the disease-tick connection in the early 50s and noted its northward migration long before anyone was talking about climate change.
The early story was American hunters brought the disease to the southern tip of Nova Scotia's Yarmouth county on their hunting dogs, the region a virtual Shangri-la for grouse and woodcock at the time. I can't vouch for its accuracy.
I do know deer/black-legged ticks have taken 50 years to spread the 220 miles from Yarmouth county to where I live now on the Northumberland Strait, looking across to Cape Breton Island, where they apparently haven't reached.
To your point, my guess is Lyme did not emerge from where it was named. It was where the connection was finally made of ticks causing a particularly debilitating and sometimes fatal disease. You and I live in more-chilly places.
