60 Fun Facts About Lake Superior

Lake Superior drains east into which of the other Great Lakes?

The water then works its way through the lower lakes to the St. Lawrence and the Atlantic. Superior sits highest of the five, which is where its French name came from.

Lake Superior is the world's largest freshwater lake by surface area. By volume, where does it rank?

Only two lakes hold more fresh water, both of them far deeper rift lakes. The Caspian Sea beats it on both counts but is brackish, so it does not qualify.

Which two lakes hold more fresh water than Lake Superior?

Both are ancient rift-valley lakes more than a kilometre deep. Superior is huge but relatively shallow for its size, averaging under 500 feet.

The Ojibwe name for the lake, gichi-gami, which Longfellow wrote as 'Gitche Gumee', means what?

Father Frederic Baraga's 1853 dictionary, the first for the Ojibwe language, recorded it as Otchipwe-kitchi-gami. Gordon Lightfoot borrowed the same spelling as Longfellow.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow set which poem 'by the shining Big-Sea-Water' of Gitche Gumee?

Longfellow never saw the lake; he built the poem largely from Henry Schoolcraft's writings on Ojibwe legends. Its galloping trochaic metre was borrowed from the Finnish Kalevala.

The 17th-century French name 'le lac supérieur' described the lake as what, relative to Lake Huron?

Some Jesuits preferred Lac Tracy, after a French official. The British kept 'Superior' after 1760 because, they said, it was superior in magnitude to any lake on the continent.

At about 31,700 square miles, Lake Superior's surface is roughly the size of which European country?

It is also about the size of South Carolina. Its shoreline, islands included, runs 2,726 miles.

What is Lake Superior's maximum depth?

The deepest point lies more than 700 feet below sea level, the second-lowest spot in the interior of the continental United States. Limnologist J. Val Klump was the first person to reach it, in 1985.

How long does a drop of water stay in Lake Superior on average before flowing out?

That retention time is why pollutants linger and why the lake stays so clear and nutrient-poor. Lake Erie, by contrast, flushes in under three years.

Below about 660 feet, Lake Superior's water sits at an almost constant temperature of what?

Twice a year the whole column reaches that same temperature and the lake fully mixes top to bottom, which is called being dimictic. Fresh water is densest at 4 °C, so the deep layer never gets colder.

There is enough water in Lake Superior to cover all of North and South America to what depth?

That is roughly 2,900 cubic miles of water, about a tenth of the world's surface fresh water. Storm waves on it have topped 30 feet.

What is the largest island in Lake Superior?

It is big enough to hold lakes of its own, some of which contain their own islands. Ryan Island in Siskiwit Lake is the largest island-in-a-lake-on-an-island in the lake.

The park on the lake's largest island is famous for a long study of which predator and prey?

Neither animal lived there historically; the moose swam or walked over ice around 1900 and the wolves crossed an ice bridge in the late 1940s. It is the only known place the two coexist without bears.

In what year was the national park on Lake Superior's largest island established?

Once it became a park, logging ended and small Scandinavian fishing communities were removed. Today it has no permanent inhabitants and closes completely for the winter.

Duluth, Minnesota, is named after which French explorer?

Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut, explored the western end of the lake in 1679. His name was anglicized several ways before the city settled on its spelling.

Duluth's Aerial Bridge, built in 1905, was the first of what kind of bridge in the United States?

A gondola hanging from the span ferried up to 350 people, streetcars and wagons across the ship canal. It was rebuilt as a vertical-lift bridge in 1929-1930, which is how it works today.

Which musician was born in Duluth in 1941?

He grew up down the road in Hibbing on the Iron Range. The Broadway musical Girl from the North Country sets his songs in Depression-era Duluth.

The Port of Duluth is the world's farthest inland port that can be reached by what?

Ships reach it via the St. Lawrence Seaway, more than 2,300 miles from the Atlantic. It is also the busiest port on the Great Lakes.

Thunder Bay, Ontario, was created on 1 January 1970 by merging Fort William with which other city?

The two towns had feuded since the railway arrived, and the new name was chosen by referendum in 1969. Picking the name caused more argument than the merger itself.

Ojibwe legend identifies the Sleeping Giant on the Sibley Peninsula as which figure turned to stone?

The legend says he was petrified when the location of the Silver Islet mine was revealed to white men. Canadians voted the Giant seventh in the CBC's Seven Wonders of Canada, ahead of Niagara Falls.

A 9-foot statue outside Thunder Bay marks where which Canadian abandoned his 1980 cross-country run?

He had run 143 days and more than 5,000 km on a prosthetic leg when his cancer returned. The lookout sits above the Trans-Canada Highway on the lake's north shore.

Which cinnamon-bun pastry with pink icing is a local invention of Thunder Bay?

The city also claims the 'shag', a combined shower-and-stag party for engaged couples. Locals argue about whether the icing is raspberry or strawberry.

In what year did the first Soo Locks open at Sault Ste. Marie?

The State Lock was run by Michigan before being handed to the federal government. Ships had previously been portaged around the rapids on rollers.

The Soo Locks lift ships across roughly what height difference between Lake Superior and the lake below?

The drop happens over the rapids of the St. Marys River. The Poe Lock, rebuilt in 1968, is the only one able to take the largest 1,000-foot lakers.

More ships have been lost near Whitefish Bay than anywhere else on Lake Superior. What is that shore nicknamed?

The wrecks there are now protected as an underwater preserve for divers. Storms in November 1905 and November 1913 each claimed multiple ships.

The SS Edmund Fitzgerald sank on November 10, 1975, about 15 nautical miles from which cape?

The cape is now home to the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum and a bird observatory. The wreck lies in about 530 feet of water, broken in two.

How many crew members died when the Edmund Fitzgerald went down?

No bodies were recovered. Mariners' Church in Detroit rang its bell once for each man the next day, and rang it once more when Gordon Lightfoot died in 2023.

What cargo was the Edmund Fitzgerald carrying on its final voyage from Superior, Wisconsin?

She had hauled the iron-ore pellets from Minnesota's Iron Range to steel mills for 17 years. Loading took about four and a half hours; unloading took 14.

Which singer-songwriter recorded 'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald'?

He wrote it after reading a Newsweek article about the sinking and later changed a lyric when the cause was reassessed. Its line about the lake never giving up her dead is literally true.

In 1995 divers in an atmospheric suit recovered what from the Edmund Fitzgerald, leaving a replica in its place?

Canadian engineer Phil Nuytten's Newtsuit did the job. The replica is engraved with the names of the 29 crew, and the diver also left a beer can in the pilothouse.

How long was the Edmund Fitzgerald, the largest ship on the Great Lakes when launched in 1958?

She held the 'Queen of the Lakes' title for barely a year before a ship one foot longer was launched. She remains the largest vessel ever to sink on the lakes.

Why is it said that Lake Superior 'never gives up her dead'?

In warmer water, decomposition gases float a body within days. Superior stays near freezing at depth year-round, so bodies sink and stay down.

The deadly Great Lakes Storm of November 1913 is remembered by which nickname?

It was a blizzard with hurricane-force winds that lasted four days. Nineteen ships were destroyed and nineteen more stranded, the deadliest disaster in Great Lakes history.

Split Rock Lighthouse was built after which 1905 storm wrecked or damaged 29 ships?

The light was first lit in July 1910 and cost $75,000 including the land. Its French-made bi-valve Fresnel lens is still in place.

Michigan's Keweenaw Peninsula was the site of the first major US mining boom for which metal?

Its lava flows hold the only strata on Earth where large-scale, 97-percent-pure native metal is found in economic quantities. Mining ran from the 1840s to the 1960s.

US Highway 41's northern end lies just outside which Keweenaw community?

The village is also the ferry port for Isle Royale and sits below Brockway Mountain Drive, billed as the highest paved road between the Rockies and the Alleghenies.

Hancock, Michigan, at the base of the Keweenaw, averages roughly how much lake-effect snow a year?

An unofficial station up the peninsula at Delaware averages about 240 inches and once recorded 390 inches in a single winter. The lake stays open into January and keeps feeding the snow machine.

Pictured Rocks, near Munising, Michigan, became the first what in the United States in 1966?

Its name comes from 13 miles of sandstone cliffs streaked by mineral seeps. Miners Castle, its most famous formation, lost one of its turrets to a collapse in 2006.

How many islands make up Wisconsin's Apostle Islands park on Lake Superior?

Camping is allowed on 18 of them. In cold winters the sandstone sea caves fill with ice and draw crowds walking out over the frozen lake.

How many historic lighthouses stand in the Apostle Islands, more than any other National Park Service site?

They stand on six different islands. The Sand Island light, at about 44 feet, was among the first anywhere to be automated, in 1922.

Which island, spiritual centre of the Lake Superior Chippewa, is the only Apostle Island open to private ownership?

Its Ojibwe name, Mooningwanekaaning, refers to the abundance of yellow-shafted flickers. It has flown the flags of France, Britain and the United States and is reached by ferry from Bayfield.

Marquette, the largest city in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, is home to the world's largest what?

The Superior Dome at Northern Michigan University hosts the university's football games and the UP high-school playoffs. The city's port still loads iron-ore pellets onto lake freighters.

In what year did Minnesota make the Lake Superior agate its official state gemstone?

The banded red-and-white stones formed in iron-rich lava flows about 1.1 billion years ago, making them among the world's oldest agates. Glaciers scattered them across the region.

The Grand Portage, an 8.5-mile fur-trade footpath in Minnesota, bypasses falls and rapids on which river?

The river forms part of the US-Canada border. Voyageurs carried 90-pound packs over the trail, and the North West Company held its annual rendezvous at the lakeside depot.

Which Ontario river is the largest tributary flowing into Lake Superior?

It drains Lake Nipigon, sometimes called the sixth Great Lake. A brook trout caught there in 1915 is still the world record for the species.

Ontario's Slate Islands, home to the province's largest herd of woodland caribou, were formed by what?

The crater is about 32 km across. The caribou walked over on an ice bridge in 1907 and, with no predators, reached the highest density ever recorded for the species.

Kakabeka Falls, west of Thunder Bay and nicknamed 'the Niagara of the North', drops how far?

The name comes from the Ojibwe for 'waterfall over a cliff'. The gorge cuts through Precambrian shale that holds some of the oldest fossils known.

Lake Superior State University's 'Unicorn Hunters' are best known for publishing an annual list of what?

The list of words 'banished from the Queen's English for mis-use, over-use and general uselessness' comes out every New Year. The same group also burns a snowman each March.

The twin cities of Sault Ste. Marie, in Michigan and Ontario, face each other across which river?

The river is Superior's only natural outlet, and its rapids gave both cities their name, from the French for 'the falls'. Ojibwe fishermen worked the rapids for whitefish for centuries.

What was the name of the first steamboat to run on Lake Superior, in 1847?

Steamers had been running on the lower lakes since 1816, but the rapids at the Soo kept them off Superior for three more decades. Ice still closes shipping from mid-January to late March.

In which year did Lake Superior's ice cover reach a record 95 percent?

The lake freezes over completely only about once every 20 years. Warmer surface temperatures since 1979 had led some scientists to predict routinely ice-free winters by 2040.

Which fur-trading rival to Hudson's Bay, formed in 1783, built posts at Grand Portage and Fort William?

The rivalry hurt both firms and they merged under the Hudson's Bay name in 1821. Beaver hats in Europe drove the whole trade.

Which parasitic, eel-like invader has damaged Lake Superior's native fish populations?

It reached the upper lakes after shipping canals removed the natural barriers. Superior is oligotrophic, meaning nutrient-poor, so its fish stocks were never large to begin with.

Which US state, besides Michigan and Wisconsin, has a shoreline on Lake Superior?

The Canadian province of Ontario borders the lake to the north and east.

Some 17th-century Jesuit missionaries called Lake Superior by which alternative name?

It honoured Alexandre de Prouville de Tracy; the British later anglicised the name to Superior.

Roughly how many rivers feed Lake Superior?

They include the Nipigon, St. Louis, Pigeon, Pic, White, Michipicoten, Bois Brule and Kaministiquia.

Lake Superior sits in a long-extinct Mesoproterozoic crustal split known by what name?

Amethyst formed in cavities created by the rift, and several amethyst mines operate near Thunder Bay.

What name is given to the glacial meltwater body that preceded Superior in its basin?

The Plano people hunted caribou on its northwestern side around 10,000 years ago.

Which two French minesweepers vanished on the lake in 1918, the last warships to sink in the Great Lakes?

With 78 crew lost, their sinking remains the largest loss of life on Lake Superior.

Lake Superior is classed as what type of lake because of its low dissolved nutrients?

Its small, thinly settled watershed with little agriculture leaves the water nutrient-poor.