100 Fun Facts About The Great Lakes: Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario

Which is the only one of the five Great Lakes that lies entirely within the United States?

The other four form the water boundary between the US and Canada; Michigan is also the largest lake by area that sits inside a single country.

Roughly what share of the world's surface fresh water do the Great Lakes contain?

The Great Lakes hold about 21% of the world's surface fresh water, roughly six quadrillion US gallons, enough to cover the contiguous United States to a depth of about 9.5 feet.

Which lake is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area, though only third by volume?

Superior ranks only third by volume, behind Baikal in Siberia and Tanganyika in East Africa; the Caspian Sea is bigger but brackish.

Which two Great Lakes are hydrologically a single body of water, joined at the Straits of Mackinac?

They sit at the same elevation, and geographers sometimes call the combined lake Michigan-Huron, which by that reckoning is the world's largest freshwater lake by area.

Which Great Lake is the shallowest, the smallest by volume and the warmest?

Its western basin is so shallow that, as one account puts it, the slightest breeze can kick up lively waves.

Which Great Lake has the smallest surface area?

Ontario covers about 7,340 square miles, the least of the five, yet its 802-foot maximum depth means it holds far more water than shallow Erie.

The Great Lakes began to form at the end of the last glacial period, as which ice sheet receded?

The Laurentide Ice Sheet carved the basins and its meltwater filled them, creating vanished ancestors such as Lake Algonquin and Glacial Lake Iroquois.

The name Superior comes from French explorers who called it 'lac supérieur'. What did they mean by it?

It was simply above Lake Huron in elevation on their route in; the Ojibwe name, Gichigami, means 'great water'.

Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha uses which name for Superior, borrowed from Ojibwe?

Gitche Gumee is Longfellow's spelling of the Ojibwe name Gichigami; his 1855 poem pictures Hiawatha's childhood 'by the shores of Gitche Gumee, by the shining Big-Sea-Water'.

Because of its huge volume, water entering Lake Superior stays there on average for roughly how long?

Superior's retention time is about 191 years: it holds roughly 2,900 cubic miles of water, while its single outlet carries away only a comparative trickle.

Lake Erie takes its name from the Iroquoian word erielhonan, which translates as what?

'Long tail' is erielhonan; the Erie people who gave the lake its name were destroyed or absorbed by the Iroquois in the 17th century.

The name Michigan is believed to come from the Ojibwe word mishigami, which means what?

'Great water' is mishigami; the Straits of Mackinac take their name from Michilimackinac, understood to mean Place of the Great Turtle.

The Hurons, after whom Lake Huron is named, are also known by what name?

Wyandot (also Wendat) is the Hurons' own name; 'Huron' was a French nickname, and the French also called the lake La Mer Douce, the freshwater sea.

The largest island in any inland body of water in the world sits in Lake Huron. What is it called?

It is big enough to hold Lake Manitou, the world's largest lake on a freshwater island, which in turn holds islands of its own.

The largest island in Superior, and the second largest in the whole Great Lakes, is which national park?

Isle Royale, about 45 miles long, became a national park in 1940; it has no permanent residents and hosts the decades-long study of its wolves and moose.

Georgian Bay, sometimes called the 'sixth Great Lake', is an arm of which of the five?

Its 30,000 Islands inspired the Group of Seven painters, and Samuel de Champlain overwintered on its shores in 1615.

Which US state borders both Lake Erie and Lake Ontario?

New York is the only state on both lakes: its Erie shore runs from the Pennsylvania line to Buffalo and its Ontario shore from the Niagara River to the St. Lawrence.

Le Griffon, the first known sailing ship on the upper Great Lakes, was built in 1679 for which explorer?

René-Robert Cavelier de La Salle had the Griffon built near Niagara in 1679; she vanished that September on her return from Green Bay with a cargo of furs.

Which body of water briefly became America's official 'sixth Great Lake' in March 1998?

Lake Champlain got the status through a clause in a Sea Grant reauthorisation bill that President Clinton signed on 6 March 1998; Midwestern outrage had it repealed within weeks.

The SS Edmund Fitzgerald sank in Superior on November 10 of which year?

She went down on 10 November 1975 in a Superior gale about 17 miles from Whitefish Bay, taking all 29 crew; launched in 1958, she was then the largest ship on the lakes.

What cargo was the Edmund Fitzgerald carrying on her final voyage?

For 17 years she hauled the iron-ore pellets from Minnesota's Iron Range to steel mills in Detroit and Toledo; loading took about four and a half hours.

What were the last words radioed by Captain Ernest McSorley before his freighter, the Edmund Fitzgerald, vanished?

'We are holding our own' answered the freighter Arthur M. Anderson, which was trailing behind and lost the Fitzgerald from radar minutes later.

Which Canadian singer-songwriter turned the sinking of the Great Lakes freighter Edmund Fitzgerald into a hit 1976 ballad?

Gordon Lightfoot wrote it after reading a Newsweek article titled 'The Cruelest Month'; the ship's bell, raised in 1995, sits in the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum.

The stretch of Superior's shore between Grand Marais, Michigan and Whitefish Point is nicknamed what?

The 'Graveyard of the Great Lakes' has claimed more ships than any other part of Superior; its wrecks are protected within the Whitefish Point Underwater Preserve.

Roughly how many died in the November 1913 'White Hurricane', the deadliest storm in Great Lakes history?

More than 250 sailors died; the storm wrecked 19 ships and stranded 19 more, and Lake Huron alone swallowed eight freighters with all hands on 9 November.

Niagara Falls is really three waterfalls; which one, straddling the US–Canada border, is the largest?

Horseshoe Falls takes about 90% of the river's summer flow and is the most powerful waterfall in North America.

The Niagara River, which creates the falls, drains which of the Great Lakes into which?

The Niagara River carries Erie's outflow 36 miles north into Ontario, dropping about 326 feet on the way, which is why Ontario lies far below the other four lakes.

Who became the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel, in October 1901?

Annie Edson Taylor, a 63-year-old schoolteacher, went over on 24 October 1901 after sending her cat first to test the barrel; she survived and said 'No one ought ever do that again.'

The only recorded time Niagara Falls stopped flowing was caused by what, in March 1848?

An ice jam at the head of the Niagara River, driven by wind on Lake Erie, held back the water for about 30 hours; in 1969 engineers deliberately dewatered the American Falls for months.

The Soo Locks let ships pass between Superior and the lower lakes. On which waterway are they built?

The first locks opened in 1855; the Army Corps of Engineers runs them today and charges no toll.

The Mackinac Bridge, opened in 1957, connects which two landmasses?

The five-mile bridge spans the Straits of Mackinac to join Michigan's Upper and Lower peninsulas; before 'Mighty Mac' opened in 1957, car ferries were the only link.

President Eisenhower and which other head of state formally opened the St. Lawrence Seaway in June 1959?

The Queen, in her role as Queen of Canada, joined Prime Minister Diefenbaker and Eisenhower for a short cruise on the royal yacht Britannia at Saint-Lambert.

Which port is the westernmost terminus of the St. Lawrence Seaway system?

Duluth sits at the western tip of Superior, 2,342 miles from the Atlantic by water; with Superior, Wisconsin it forms the Twin Ports, and its 1905 Aerial Lift Bridge began life as a transporter bridge.

Which canal lets ships bypass Niagara Falls between Erie and Ontario, and how many locks does it have?

The Welland Canal climbs the Niagara Escarpment with eight locks over 27 miles; first opened in 1829, it was rebuilt three times, the present canal being completed in 1932.

The Erie Canal, completed across upstate New York in 1825, linked Lake Erie to which river?

The Hudson link gave the Midwest a water route to New York City and made it the dominant Atlantic port; canal tolls had repaid the $7 million construction cost by the mid-1830s.

Opponents mocked the Erie Canal as 'Clinton's Big Ditch', after a governor with which first name?

Governor DeWitt Clinton pushed the canal through; at the 1825 opening he sailed from Buffalo to New York and poured a keg of Lake Erie water into the harbour, the 'Wedding of the Waters'.

A June 1969 fire on which Ohio waterway, flowing into Erie, helped spark the US environmental movement?

The Cuyahoga had burned at least a dozen times since 1868; the 1969 blaze lasted about half an hour, and Time's famous photo actually showed a bigger 1952 fire.

Which canal, opened in 1900, reversed the Chicago River so sewage flowed away from Lake Michigan?

The Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, opened in January 1900, carries the reversed Chicago River's flow towards the Illinois and Mississippi rivers instead of into Lake Michigan.

Zebra mussels were first detected in the Great Lakes in 1988. How are they thought to have arrived?

The first sighting was in Lake St. Clair; the mussels filter so much water that they have changed the clarity and food web of the lakes.

Which fish did Michigan first stock in Lake Michigan in 1966 to curb the alewife explosion?

Coho salmon eggs from Oregon were planted in 1966 as a predator for alewives; chinook followed in 1967, creating the Great Lakes sport-salmon fishery.

An electric barrier across the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal is meant to keep which invasive fish out?

The barriers at Romeoville target bighead and silver Asian carp moving up the Illinois River; the canal is the man-made link between the Mississippi basin and Lake Michigan.

Lake-effect snow forms when what happens?

Cold air crosses warmer open water and loads up with moisture; the downwind regions that get buried, such as the Tug Hill Plateau east of Lake Ontario, are called snowbelts.

Which is the largest city on Erie?

Cleveland, with about 372,000 people at the 2020 census, is well ahead of Buffalo and Toledo; it grew at the mouth of the Cuyahoga after the Ohio and Erie Canal reached it in 1827.

Near which Ohio port did Perry's US squadron win the Battle of Lake Erie in the War of 1812?

Perry sailed from Put-in-Bay on South Bass Island to meet the British on 10 September 1813; his victory gave the US control of the lake and the dispatch 'We have met the enemy and they are ours.'

The French explorer believed to be the first European to reach Lake Michigan, possibly in 1634, was who?

Jean Nicolet landed near Green Bay in 1634 wearing a Chinese silk robe, expecting to meet Asians; Marquette and Jolliet followed the same shore in 1673 on their way to the Mississippi.

Which TV programme's 2011 viewer vote named Sleeping Bear Dunes the most beautiful place in America?

ABC's Good Morning America ran a viewer poll in August 2011 that put the dunes first; the name comes from an Ojibwe legend of a mother bear waiting for her cubs, who became the Manitou islands.

The first 1,000-foot lake freighter, launched in 1972, was named what?

The Stewart J. Cort's bow and stern were built at Pascagoula, Mississippi as a short vessel nicknamed 'Stubby', which sailed to Erie, Pennsylvania to be joined to a new 1,000-foot hull's midsection.

Kingston, on the north shore of Ontario, dates to a French fort founded in 1673 and once served as what?

Kingston was the first capital of the united Province of Canada from 1841 to 1844; the city grew up around Fort Frontenac, built in 1673, and became a 19th-century shipbuilding centre.

The Rush-Bagot Treaty, which led to naval disarmament on the Great Lakes, followed which war?

The 1817 Rush-Bagot agreement, signed two years after the War of 1812 ended, limited each side to a handful of small armed vessels and led to an unfortified border on the lakes.

Roughly how many islands are scattered throughout the Great Lakes?

The largest, Manitoulin, is the biggest island in any inland body of water on Earth, with Isle Royale second.

Which future US president trained as a Navy pilot on a coal-fired aircraft carrier on Lake Michigan in World War II?

George H. W. Bush was one of 17,820 pilots trained on USS Sable and USS Wolverine, converted excursion steamers that were the Navy's only freshwater, side-wheel carriers.

Which Dr. Seuss book lost a line about Lake Erie's pollution after researchers told the author the lake was recovering?

The Lorax, published in 1971, kept the reference for more than fourteen years, until two Ohio Sea Grant researchers wrote to Seuss about the clean-up.

Which Russian lake contains more water than all five Great Lakes combined, thanks to a depth of more than 1,600 metres?

Baikal plunges 1,642 metres, deeper than any other lake, so it outdoes all five lakes together despite a surface only slightly larger than Belgium.

Which form of transport has Mackinac Island restricted since the late 1800s, after complaints from carriage drivers?

Motor vehicles were restricted because automobiles startled the island's horses. The ban still stands, with exceptions for emergency and service vehicles and for snowmobiles in winter.

Which actress became a major movie star with her top-billed role in the 1953 thriller Niagara, shot at the falls?

Marilyn Monroe took top billing over Joseph Cotten, and Niagara became one of 20th Century Fox's biggest box office hits of the year.

Which five-letter word helps schoolchildren remember the names of all five Great Lakes by their first letters?

HOMES stands for Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie and Superior, a word picked because it is easy to remember, not because the letters follow any order on the map.

Which Ohio city warned half a million people off its tap water in 2014 after toxic algae bloomed in Lake Erie?

Toledo draws its water through an intake pipe a few miles offshore, and the bloom of toxic algae formed directly above it.

Which inventor's alternating-current work lay behind the generators of the 1895 Adams Power Plant at Niagara Falls?

Nikola Tesla's work, with that of Westinghouse engineer Benjamin Lamme, shaped the generators of the world's first large-scale AC plant, whose ten machines eventually delivered 50,000 horsepower.

Which Midwestern city takes its name from the French word for strait, after the narrow river it was founded on in 1701?

Detroit grew from Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit, founded by Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac. The French knew the river as the strait of Lake Erie.

Which city on Lake Ontario's northwestern shore was the town of York until it was renamed in 1834?

Toronto was founded as the town of York in 1793, beside a natural harbour sheltered by a long sand-bar peninsula; its waterfront now runs 46 kilometres along the lake.

Which name have Niagara Falls tour boats carried since the first was launched as a border-crossing ferry in 1846?

Maid of the Mist turned to sightseeing only after a suspension bridge opened in 1848 and took away its ferry traffic, so the owners plotted a route closer to the falls.

Which African lake, drained only by the Nile, is the largest freshwater lake by surface area outside the Great Lakes?

Victoria covers about 59,947 square kilometres, which also makes it the largest tropical lake on Earth; only one of the Great Lakes is bigger.

The five Great Lakes together cover roughly the same surface area as which European country?

The United Kingdom is the usual yardstick: the lakes' surface totals about 94,250 square miles, and the whole basin they drain is about the size of Britain and France combined.

Which city on the western shore of Lake Michigan, built where three rivers meet, is the most populous in Wisconsin?

Milwaukee lies at the confluence of the Menomonee, the Kinnickinnic and the river that shares its name; one theory traces that name to a Meskwaki term for a gathering place.

Which Wisconsin city stands at the mouth of the Fox River, at the head of a long Lake Michigan inlet?

Green Bay is far better known for its NFL team: the Packers were founded in the city in 1919.

Which city at the eastern end of Lake Erie boomed after being chosen as the western terminus of the Erie Canal?

Buffalo expanded its harbor to win the terminus from its rival Black Rock, then grew into the main inland port between the lakes and the ocean.

Which eel-like saltwater parasite slipped into the Great Lakes through shipping canals and ravaged the lake trout?

Sea lamprey clamp on to other fish to feed, and a single one can kill about 40 pounds of fish during its 12 to 18 months of feeding.

Which game fish, a mainstay of Lake Erie's commercial and sport catch, is known as pickerel in parts of Canada?

Walleye are named for pearlescent eyes that see well in low light, which is why anglers so often go after them at night.

Which Ohio amusement park, famed for its roller coasters, fills a peninsula jutting into Lake Erie at Sandusky?

Cedar Point opened in 1870, when the lake's south shore was becoming a holiday spot for the new middle class; the peninsula was named for its cedar trees and first known for fishing.

What was raised from the Edmund Fitzgerald wreck in 1995 and replaced by a replica engraved with the crew's names?

The ship's bell was brought up by a diver in an atmospheric diving suit and became the heart of a memorial at Whitefish Point to the 29 men lost.

Water flowing out of Lake Ontario down the St. Lawrence River eventually reaches which body of water?

The Atlantic is where the whole chain drains: the St. Lawrence carries the outflow of all five lakes through the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the open sea.

Through the Illinois Waterway, barges can travel from Lake Michigan to the Gulf of Mexico by way of which river?

The Mississippi link is man-made at its top end: canals and altered rivers at Chicago join two basins that nature kept apart, and a chain of locks steps barges down from the lake.

Which archipelago straddles the US–Canada border where Lake Ontario empties into the St. Lawrence River?

Thousand Islands undersells it: the archipelago counts 1,864 islands, and a salad dressing is presumed to take its name from the region.

Which acrobat crossed the Niagara Gorge on a tightrope in 1859, later pausing midway to cook an omelette?

Charles Blondin repeated the 1,100-foot crossing blindfolded, on stilts and with his manager on his back, all 160 feet above the water.

Which Niagara Falls neighborhood, built beside a chemical company's buried waste, was demolished in a Superfund cleanup?

Love Canal was named for an abandoned canal where Hooker Chemical dumped 19,800 tonnes of byproducts in the 1940s, before selling the land to the local school district for $1.

Which Ontario city on Lake Superior was created in 1970 by merging the rival cities of Fort William and Port Arthur?

Thunder Bay ended a rivalry that began when the railway arrived; Fort William had been a Montreal fur company's mid-continent depot since 1803.

Which shallow lake between Lake Huron and Lake Erie, averaging just 11 feet deep, is left out of the five Great Lakes?

St. Clair covers only about 430 square miles, and a 30-foot shipping channel has to be maintained through it; French explorers named it for Saint Clare of Assisi.

Which excursion steamer rolled over while tied to its Chicago River dock in 1915, killing 844 people?

Eastland was already top-heavy, and the lifeboats added under a law passed after the Titanic disaster may have made her even less stable.

Which stretch of Lake Michigan's southern shore went from national lakeshore to America's 61st national park in 2019?

Indiana Dunes runs for about 15 miles along the lake, and owes its protection to a 1966 compromise that paired the preserved shore with a new port.

Which stretch of sandstone cliffs on Lake Superior became America's first national lakeshore in 1966?

Pictured Rocks takes its name from the colourful sandstone cliffs near Munising, whose sheer walls make the rich fishing waters below dangerous for canoes and other open boats.

Which Wisconsin peninsula, known for its cherry orchards, separates a long bay from the main body of Lake Michigan?

Door takes its name from the dangerous passage off its tip, known in French as Porte des Morts, which translates as Death's Door.

Which Ontario peninsula, tipped by the town of Tobermory, carries the Niagara Escarpment out into Lake Huron?

Bruce holds the largest remaining stretch of forest in southern Ontario and some of the oldest trees in eastern North America.

Which bay of Lake Huron forms the gap between the Thumb of Michigan's mitten and the rest of the hand?

Saginaw Bay is shallower and warmer than the open lake, so it supports a different community of fish from the main basin.

Which Lake Superior archipelago off northern Wisconsin is famous for sea caves that fill with icicles in winter?

Apostle Islands number 22 rather than twelve, and the name first appeared in print on a French map published in 1744.

Which national park on Lake Erie, a funnel for migrating birds, is the southernmost tip of mainland Canada?

Point Pelee lies at the same latitude as Rome and Barcelona, and sits where two major flyways cross, so about 350 species of migratory birds have been recorded there.

Which Ontario port wraps around the western tip of Lake Ontario and grew up around the Stelco and Dofasco steel mills?

Hamilton was first known simply as The Head-of-the-Lake for its position, and its two steel giants were founded within two years of each other, in 1910 and 1912.

Which steel city on Lake Michigan's southern shore was founded in 1906 and named after U.S. Steel's chairman?

Gary honours Elbert Henry Gary, a lawyer who was the founding chairman of the United States Steel Corporation, which built the town to serve its mills.

Which Minnesota lighthouse, perched on a cliff above Lake Superior, was built after a 1905 storm damaged 29 ships?

Split Rock was so cut off that all its building materials arrived by water and had to be lifted to the top of the cliff by crane.

What nickname do Great Lakes sailors give the ocean-going ships that reach the lakes through the St. Lawrence Seaway?

Salties often arrive only part-loaded, because fresh water is less buoyant than the sea and their deeper hulls would otherwise ride too low.

What is the name for the wind-driven sloshing that piles water up at one end of Lake Erie during storms?

A seiche hits Lake Erie hardest because the lake's long axis lines up with the prevailing winds; forecasters issue low-water advisories when a big one is likely.

Which canal, opened in 1832 and listed by UNESCO, links Lake Ontario at Kingston with the Ottawa River?

Rideau is the oldest continuously operated canal system in North America; its locks lift boats 83 metres from the Ottawa River before dropping them 50 metres to the lake.

What is the meaning of 'La Mer Douce', the name early French visitors often gave Lake Huron?

The fresh-water sea matches one reading of Karegnondi, the name on a 1656 French map, which has been translated as Freshwater Sea or simply as lake.

Which landscape architect campaigned from the 1860s to preserve the land around Niagara Falls as a public park?

Frederick Law Olmsted helped found the Niagara Falls Association in 1883 to stop private exploitation of the falls, and the Niagara Reservation, the oldest US state park, followed two years later.

Which Michigan peninsula jutting into Lake Superior was home to the first major copper mining boom in the United States?

Keweenaw lava flows hold the only rock on Earth with large, recoverable deposits of 97 percent pure native copper, and mines worked them from the 1840s to the 1960s.

Which freighter, sailing close behind the Edmund Fitzgerald on her last night, reported her loss to the Coast Guard?

Arthur M. Anderson was the last ship in contact with her, and became the first rescue vessel on the scene in a vain search for survivors.

Which island, the largest in Lake Michigan, was ruled from 1848 to 1856 by the self-proclaimed Mormon king James Strang?

Beaver Island's monarchy ended with Strang's assassination in 1856, after which Irish American fishermen returned, expelled his followers and took the island back.

Which Montreal fur-trading firm gathered each July at Grand Portage, and later Fort William, on Lake Superior?

The North West Company traded from 1779 to 1821, and the lakeside depot was where its city agents met the wintering partners who ran the trade in the fur country.

Which canal route links Lake Ontario with Georgian Bay, hauling boats over one stretch on a marine railway?

The Trent–Severn Waterway was finished only in 1920, delayed by World War I; its 44 locks include hydraulic lift locks at Peterborough and Kirkfield.

Which vessel, launched in 1818 and wrecked in a gale three years later, was the first steamboat to run on Lake Erie?

Walk-in-the-Water was launched sideways in May 1818 and went on to become the first steamboat on Lake Huron and Lake Michigan as well.

Which invasive mussel, named after an extinct kind of zebra, was first found in North America in Lake Erie in 1989?

Quagga mussels come from the Dnipro River in Ukraine, and by 2021 they were so abundant that they had become the main regulator of phosphorus in the lower four lakes.