North America's Forgotten Great Lakes
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 มิ.ย. 2024
- North America has a lot of lakes that are pretty great, including the Great Salt lake, the Great Slave Lake, and the Great Bear Lake. But North America’s greatest lakes are the North American Great Lakes, often just called the Great Lakes if you’re confident you won’t confuse them with the African Great Lakes. The Great Lakes with the greatest area are Lake Superior, Lake Huron, Lake Michigan, Lake Erie, and Lake Ontario. But these aren’t the only significant lakes in the Great Lakes watershed, the area of land that drains into the major Great Lakes, and those additional lakes are also pretty great. Let’s Explore!
Check out more "great" lakes at the second video here: • North America's OTHER ...
Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:36 Lake St. Clair
1:18 Lake Nipigon
2:00 Lake Winnebago
2:51 Lake Simcoe
4:04 Lake Nipissing
4:57 Lake Champlain
5:32 Lake Michigan-Huron
6:30 Lake Algonquin
7:40 Conclusion
CORRECTIONS:
Nipigon is pronounced more like "Nipigin" or "Nipigen" (/ˈnɪpɪɡən/ for all you IPA fans)
"Portage" rhymes with "frontage", not "massage" (although some Canadians have mentioned they pronounce it the way I do in the video)
The lake next to Lake Nipissing is "Trout Lake", not "Lake Trout" which is a type of fish
The RV manufacturer Winnebago Industries is named after Winnebago County, Iowa, not Lake Winnebago. Both names are related to the term "Winnebago" used to refer to the Ho-Chunk tribe.
The map showing Northern vs Southern Ontario isn't completely accurate, as some districts south of the French River are considered part of Northern Ontario as well.
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Credits:
Great Lakes Basin: Drdpw, CC BY-SA 3.0
RV: High Contrast, CC BY 3.0 de
Downtown Green Bay: Chris Rand, CC BY-SA 4.0
Ottawa River map: Kmusser, CC BY-SA 2.5
French River Shores: shanhitex, CC BY 3.0
Champlain River Kmusser, CC BY-SA 2.5
University of Vermont: Michelle Maria, CC BY 3.0
Champlain Sea: Orbitale, CC BY-SA 3.0
Music:
College Hornpipe: Kildwyke, CC BY-SA 3.0
Whatever is said, The Great Lakes should be protected at all costs. The way I see it we have an inland sea of fresh water to be treasured.
I agree with you there
@@mostlyguesses8385 your logic is interesting
@mostlyguesses8385 did you huff paint thinner before writing this? Any contaminants in lake superior will inevitably flow down to contaminate every other great lake, even if it takes a thousand years.
@@mostlyguesses8385 Do you realize there's a middle ground to be claimed that lies between primitive living with no industrialized society and unsustainable toxic pollution constantly infiltrating the environment? We need to live with the environment, not in spite of it
The biggest threat to the lakes are Chinese freighters and the CCP.
I live 10 min from Huron in the north
I've lived in Quebec and Ontario for forty years in six different, greatly separated communities. Without any effort on my part I've managed to never live more then a half hour away from great lakes water system and for over thirty years I could see the local lake or river from my home. It really makes clear how important the water way is in the establishment of our society.
Yeah! You get a really different experience living there than somewhere more like a desert.
@@SignoreGalilei i live in Sweden but i want to visit north america
@@Isowlaite There's a lot of very different landscapes here to visit. You might have to make more than one trip!
@@Isowlaite absolutely between the US & Canada alone there is so much to see. (Not to mention all the other nations on this continent)
But seriously you could visit the US & Canada a dozen times & still have so much to see.
Me too. But if I were to move now, I’d consciously select a spot that meets this criteria.
I’d never want to live far from a lake or waterway.
My lifestyle is built around it.
Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron deserves a mention (see avatar at left). Lake Manitou is the largest interior lake on Manitoulin Island, thus making it the largest lake literally inside the Great Lakes. It is the largest lake in a lake, on the largest freshwater island in the world.
And Spirit island on Lake Manitou is the world's largest island in a lake on an island in a lake.
That is pretty cool! Fun that it's in your avatar also.
That is really cool. A lake inside a lake! There are so many amazing areas on the Great Lakes.
@@harrietharlow9929 Lake Manitou and several other interior lakes also have small islands, but a quick look through aerial photos I can't find any with lakes or ponds on them. So no "lake in a lake in a lake" .
@@haweater1555 Not on Lake Huron at least. Someone on Wikipedia claims there's one in Lake Yathked.
I lived 3 blocks away from Lake Michigan for a few years. It was truly amazing. In the summer, you rarely ran your air conditioning due to the beautiful cool breeze you’d get off the lake. I loved all the lake gulls too.
That sounds lovely!
I grew up near Lake St. Clair and don't remember my mum needing to run the air conditioning much, either. We had some nice breezes off the lake.
On the other hand winter can kind of suck, particularly if you don't like winter
Lake michigan makes winter Temperatures even more bearable. Milwaukee County is significantly warmer than those inland counties. Still uninhabitable at times
did you not live there during the rest of the year? probably not, right?
As a native Michigander, it was so cool to hear about all the other 'Great Lakes' that drain into our watershed!
And you even pronounced The Straits of Mackinac right! Thanks for the informative video :)
Thanks! I mispronounced a couple of other things in the video but I'm happy I did get that one.
@@SignoreGalilei I remember one time during my schoolyears I was playingQuizbowl and the other team had a bonus question where that was the answer and they didn't know it existed, so I think you're pretty ahead of the curve lol. Thanks again for the video!
@@wizkidgamer9942 You're welcome again!
Are young Michiganders “Michigoslings”? ✋🏽↙️ Hello from Downriver!
It would have the 'k' in Ojibwe though, correct? So the original pronounciation would actually have the fully pronounced ending.
Living in Southern Ontario all my life I feel very fortunate to be close to all the Great Lakes except Lake Michigan. I have to tell ya that one cannot even imagine the awe and fascination I feel standing on their shores. These bodies of water are huge! I often liken them to fresh water seas.They can be very calm one moment and can turn very choppy with high waves and stormy the next. These massive bodies of water are not without their own sets of mysteries and legends and they should be respected.
Definitely! There's a lot of stories about the storms on the Great Lakes
I consider them inland seas, too. I get homesick for them sometimes (a lot, actually). I used to love going to the lakeshore in western Michigan to gather Petoskey stones and to swim in Lake Michigan.
@@harrietharlow9929 Yes I've been to Petoskey and collected a stone too. I also liked Charlevoix. Lake MIchigan is lovely and could easily be thought of as a sea. The Northern Michigan Peninsula is gorgeous and the folks there are the best.
cue GOrdonLightfoot ...
@@ZakhadWOW Yes one of my faves of his is def The Tale of The Edmund Fitzgerald.
I live next to Lake Winnebago, the Fox River does indeed flow north. As a geologist, what was said about the glaciers and isostatic rebound (land lifting back up after the glaciers melted and their weight was gone) is also correct. Very nice job going through the history of Great Lakes region. Very well informed and put together.
Thank you, I'm always glad to hear from people who work on the areas I talk about.
I was always told the Fox was one of two navigable rivers in the world to flow north... the other the Nile. I've always taken that with a grain of salt :p
@@xmtryanx this river runs both North and South. there is an upper and lower Fox River.
Then there is the river that runs through Menomonee Falls, and down south thru Waukesha City.
That's the one that I know of. This Fox valley flows into Illinois State, and down into the Illinois river.
>
( must be a third fox river?)
@@missingremote4388 It is definitely a different Fox River. The Fox River in southeastern Wisconsin is on a different side of a divide than the fox river mentioned in the video that flows through Lake Winnebago. The Winnebago's Upper Fox River proper runs a bit southwest->northeast before cutting more directly north at Winnebago, but one of its major tributaries, the Wolf River, flows north->south before feeding into the Fox at Lake Poygan and making a U-Turn towards Green Bay
@@finnvidr Doty island resident.
Another fun fact is that the Fox river is the largest river watershed of the great lake it runs into.
It also has a navigation canal that durring the summer allows for a race from the Wisconsin river to the great lake. This allowed for the option to access the Mississippi river from the great lakes. And was one of the prominate reasons the Fox Valley was so highly developed in the early years, before the paper industry along with the railroads taking over river and sailing as the major means of transporting goods across the region.
The wolf river is 42% of the water that flows into lake Winnebago, and is the river of choice for the lake sturgion when they spawn in the spring. It's a free spectical that isn't avalible anywhere else.
Lake Winnebago is just long enough to not be able to look from the north shore to the south shore, because of the curvature of the earth. But you can with a pair of binoculars see the tippy top of the Fond du lac lighthouse.
I grew up near Lake Champlain. Yes, it is a “great” lake, although not a Great Lake. I’ve traveled around all of them, including Nipigon and the smaller but no less beautiful tributary lakes of Boundary Waters / Quetico. There are not many places in the world that approach the majesty of Superior and the others… maybe Baikal and the massive northern Canadian lakes. This is an ecosystem well worth protecting and balancing with the millions of people living within it.
I wish vermont would stop allowing companies to dump sewage into it. All of the runoffs from the farms doesn't help either. Love My Lake Champlain
I agree with you there.
one of the issues that makes CHamplain get lumped in some sense, is that is is speciically included in the treaty that ended hostilities between Great Britain and the USA after War of 1812... The treaty bans any warship construciotn on the "Great Lakes or Lake Champlain".. YOU have to look a bit but the northernmost bay of Lake Champlain, Mississquoi Bay, straddles the border.
@@ZakhadWOW Yep, that's the bit in Quebec, right?
Very interesting! I've lived a long the southern shores of Lake Erie for most of my almost 60 years of life.
Though Erie is the shallowest of the major Great Lakes, it has the highest primary production, biological diversity and fish production of all the Great Lakes. (Returning to a Healthy Lake - Prepared by the Lake Erie Biodiversity Conservation Strategy Core Team)
That's great! I know several decades ago Lake Erie had a reputation for being damaged by pollution, so it's good to see the ecosystem is doing well today
It's also the warmest and nutrient rich between Water treatment plants untreated discharge, storm sewer discharge and agricultural runoff. Saginaw bay in lake Huron has similar problems but also is very dense biologically.The excess nutrients cause blooms and bacterial spikes and lower dissolved oxygen levels.
The biggest problem for Lake Erie is by far agricultural run off.
@@patraic5241 Yep. Mostly in the western basin, as farmers can till and plant right up to rivers and streams due to the relatively flat topography. Millions of dollars have gone to work with farmers to create buffer zones along the riparian zones of rivers to capture nutrients and sediment.
I'm near the north east side, and used to have warning signs years ago cautioning against swimming due to pollution, and haven't seen one for the longest time
Living close to St. Clair all my life, we were taught about the lake to great extent. Moving away from Michigan for a few years taught me that not many people know about our tiny and humble lake. ❤
Glad I could bring some attention to it!
I’ve lived in Ontario my whole life and I’ve come to know a lot of these lakes pretty well. I grew up right by Lake Simcoe, had a cottage on Georgian Bay, my Grandparents lived in Toronto not too far from Lake Ontario and I’m currently living in North Bay next to Nipissing. Fascinating bodies of water these lakes all are
That's very cool! I agree, these are very interesting lakes.
As Ontarians (especially southern Ontarians) I think we take for granted the incredible access to water that we have, being surrounded by the largest (or close to) collection of freshwater lakes in the world. I live near London, ON, and it's crazy to think that I can drive between 30-90 minutes in any direction, and end up at a world-class body of water.
@@chad1755Great Lakes, unsalted and shark free! The biggest toothy fish are the pike and muskellunge, and very rarely are people attacked by them. No worries about sharks. 🦈
@@ronsamborski6230 😁
@@ronsamborski6230 Pretty tasty too👍
I'm from northern Ontario. Lived on lake Nippissing and canoed the French river as well as fished the Nipigon. Coupled with being a professional geologist, this video is amazing!!. Academic grade content well researched and delivered. Thank you for showcasing the great lakes region in such a way....cheers sir!!.
Id love to fish the Nipigon. Huge brook trout
Thanks so much! It's always heartening to hear positive feedback like this.
A fellow North Bay resident agrees.
I live walking distance from Lake St. Clair. At 18 miles across but pretty shallow it's basically a flooded plain (a wide spot separating the St. Clair River from the Detroit River), and technically classified as a swamp. I once went waterskiing in Anchor Bay and was only waist deep a quarter mile or so from shore.
Yeah it really isn't that deep haha
The video says 20-something feet deep, but I thought I've heard that the average depth is more like 10 feet with incidental holes that can be as much as 50 feet deep. The international shipping lane definitely has to be dredged periodically.
A swamp is a forested wetland. Lake St. Clair is technically a Lake
@@stewescapes9514 it's possible that the delta is a swamp (or at least a wetland) and the rest is actually a lake.
@@stewescapes9514 most of the surrounding areas like harsens island is a wetland with annual flooding
As a native Buffalonian, who loves the entire Great Lakes region, and has a genuine interest in so many topics most would find mundane, this video scratched so many of my little intellectual interest itches. I love it! Even if it does make me a bit home sick. I don't currently live anywhere near the Great Lakes (or many Lakes at all) because of work & life etc. But it's weird how much of an appreciation I have for things I took for granted. Niagara Falls for instance. You grow up like 30 minutes away from it, and you don't think much of it. People travel from all over the world to see them. But if you're from the region it's just kinda somewhere your parents brought you to get you out of the house, or like where you bring your friends from outta town, because they gotta see it. Now I understand entirely how unique the Falls are & have a picture of em hung on the wall above my desk so I can look at em every once in a while.
I do get that feeling. I live fairly near NYC and it took visitors from out of the country to get me to go up the Empire State Building for the one and only time I've been.
I can't stress how true this is. I'm from Rochester and I've only just started to appreciate Niagara Falls. Every time I've been, I honestly just saw it as a dumb tourist trap or something mundane. Now that I realize how big and unique the falls really are, I've started to get to truly know them.
Look up all of the fossils that you can find. Many are severely limited to the great lakes. For instance, you have Petoskey, Cadillac, Charlevoix, and many more. There is also Yupperite and Isle Royale Greenstone.
As someone who lives on Lake Erie in OH, I loved you highlighting all the smaller lakes. There are so many other glacially created Lakes and rivers in the Great Lakes region that need to be protected/restored.
My hometown Toledo has been working on restoring the Maumee River which is the largest inlet in Lake Erie, supplies about 5% of Lake Erie's water.
There are quite a few Lakes that try to claim the title "6th Great Lake," the Georgian Bay and Lake St Clair are others. I'd personally give the title to Lake St Clair as its waters seem to struggle the most with pollution and deserve to be cleaned up. Western Lake Erie where I live, gets all the crap that dumps down the Detroit River and gets so polluted we weren't even able to drink the water for a few days just a few years ago.
Thank you, glad I can bring attention to these smaller lakes. Pollution can be pretty bad sometimes.
The Great Lakes are truly great. Growing up on Lake Erie I knew they were amassing but I just recently went on a trip to Lake Superior and my god is that place magical. Truly changed my appreciation for the Great Lakes
That's super cool! I haven't been to Lake Superior specifically (I've been to some of the others) but it sounds very amazing
Me too when moving to BC via car the one side of paper map of Ontario covers South-western Ontario 1:855,360. DID NOT REALIZE WHEN FLIPPED TO THE OTHER SIDE, ESPECIALLY FROM SAULT STE. MARIE WHICH IS AT THE CONVERGENCE OF LAKES HURON, MICHIGAN, SUPERIOR...SO UNAWARE of the VASTNESS OF L. SUPERIOR..thought we should have reached a destination long time ago. THAT IS WHEN I DECIDED TO LOOK AT THIS SIDE OF THE MAP 😮😮😮😮1:1,520,640😢😢😢😢G U L P 😢😮😢 ONE M I L L I O N , 😢 😮 😢 FIVE H U N D R E D T H O U S A N D et cetera!!! versus S-W Ontario side was ONLY EIGHT HUNDRED THOUSAND !
From every standpoint, the great lakes can be seen as freshwater seas. By size, how it influences the economy, how it influences the culture, how its affected local history, the list goes on. As a Michigander, I didn't even know about some of the lakes history. Great video!
Thanks! They really are a lot like inland seas.
I grew up around Lake Nipissing and French River. Always makes me so happy when it gets talked about because no one knows about them. Thank you 😊
You're welcome! I loved learning about them myself.
As a Michigander, it's always nice seeing the lakes we are surrounded by get talked about every now and again.
Glad I could help!
Thank you we love our Great Lakes 👍 ❤ Hello from Michigan USA 🇺🇸
Great presentation. A lot of varied information, not just geologic but also historical. Good stuff.
Thanks!
I don't know if this channel has done it yet, but a video on the Winnipeg and Manitoba lakes in the province of Manitoba would be great. They are quite interesting with their own place in the western Canada water basin, and are another remnant of the vast Lake Agassi.
Haven't done that video yet, but I may soon.
Northern Saskatchewan as well
Tbh with you lake Winnipeg is actually a Great Lake drains north to Hudson Bay through the Nelson and it’s a massive watershed from the eastern divide and northern divide
Being from near Chicago and having family in the U.P. has given me pride and a love of the great lakes. The stories and tragedies behind them like the Edmund Fitzgerald are always ones I love to hear and recite to people unfamiliar and willing to listen. It does sadden me how pretty much every industry regarding the lakes has gone away. Lumber, mining, fishing are all gone, and seeing the abandoned structures for them around and along the lakes always brings a damper to my mood.
Abandoned structures can be sad, especially because of what they represent. At least the lakes themselves endure.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a content creator comment on so many posts, it must have taken you hours, I’d rather have you spend your time making more great videos, but you appreciate us as much as we do you so it’s time we’ll spent
Glad you appreciate it. Don't worry, I'm working on more videos also!
I’ve driven all the way around Lake Superior. It was a awesome trip.
That does sound cool!
As a Michigander, this was awesome to learn about some of the smaller lakes within the watershed. I didn't honestly know about lake Nipigon, for instance. Super cool video thanks for teaching me even more about the wonderful area around my home state
You're welcome, glad I could teach you something!
Great video, now go a little further West to Lake Winnipeg, which has the largest watershed in Canada.
There's a good set of lakes all up through Canada - might make a good follow-up video!
Is that where we get all the walleye we see here in Minnesota supermarkets?
@@bhatkat Quite possibly, there is a fishing industry in Gimli and smaller companies that fish out of other marinas like Winnipeg Beach. In the winter there are ice fishing huts all over the place.
Manitoba is home to over 100,000 lakes.
I’ve lived in Chicago now for about ten years and have really come to love and appreciate the Great Lakes region. Fantastic video, thanks!
Super proud to have helped contribute to Lake Erie working towards cleanliness. I volunteer to help pick up trash on the beaches each year. We have to do all we can to keep our fresh water supply clean. It's priceless.
That's so cool! Glad we have people like you keeping our lakes clean.
Thankyou very much for this. There's so much history in these lakes, and each one is very distinct from the others. I've always been particularly fond of Lake Nipigon, because it's a huge lake with many big islands in it, but few people have seen it except for the tiny bits of Orient Bay that you can see from Highway 11. That's where its only sizable community, Macdiarmid + Rocky Bay First Nation, can be found. The next largest community, Gull Bay First Nation, with a population of 200, is on the western side of the lake. A road trip between these two towns is 286 miles! Neither of these communities is very near the actual main body of the lake, but on long sheltered inlet-arms. So not many people ever see the main body of this huge lake.
... Lake Abitibi is another favourite of mine. It doesn't fit into your video because its waters flow north into James Bay. But it's a very big lake, famous for scary legends and for its actual dangers. It is such a complicated maze, with 786 islands, deadly shoals, and confusing channels that canoers can easily get lost in it. It's waters are considered very treacherous, because of strong currents, whirlpools, and the terrifying storms that commonly occur there. Again, there is little access to it other than some gravel roads on the Quebec side.
I hadn't heard about Lake Abitibi, thanks for telling me about it! It sounds very cool. I'd love to see these lakes in person some time.
Great video about some great lakes! You know there used to be plans to dig a canal through central milwaukee down to the Root River to allow access to the Mississippi? Also, milwaukee neighborhoods hated each other so much that they built their bridges intentionally misaligned with the other neighborhood's existing road network, you can see a remnant of it on the intersection of the menominee parkway and harmonee ave, near Wauwatosa catholic school. It's a mess of rail, pedestrian and road bridges now, dead ends and one ways, very wacky
I didn't know that, that's neat! Also hilarious about the bridges
The Root River flows into Lake Michigan at Racine. I'm thinking you mean the Fox River* in Southern Wisconsin that flows down into Illinois and then into the Mississippi. The sub-continental divide between the Great Lakes and Mississippi watersheds in the area around southeast Wisconsin is only about 5 miles or less from the lakeshore in spots.
*Yes Wisconsin has two rivers named the Fox.
Growing up my family got a Riverqueen Houseboat, to live on in the summer at the Detroit Yacht Club on Belle Isle on the Detroit River. Got that in 1970, and Dad bought a 27-foot sloop, and docked it at the Detroit Yacht Club as well, in a slip on the same dock 2 years later. That was our summer home/cottage setting for many years. Great times. Many trips on the Sailboat to islands and amusement parks on the lakes, it was a great time. Went to Boblo Island Park, and Cedar Point Park and docked in the harbors and then played in the parks. What a great time. I was 12 when we got the boats, had them for years. Nothing more exciting then to have to sail a 27-foot sloop in storms and high winds, I loved that so much.
I live in Orillia right on lake Simcoe it's HUGE. Looks like a sea of fresh water
Wow, that must be an impressive sight!
I had family that lived there too.
Fabulous explanation and history of the Great Lakes. I would also like to add, greetings from the Great State of Michigan. Thank you for this video and yes a new subscriber.
You're welcome! Glad to have you on board.
Love the Great Lakes it’s just amazing the shear size of them and the amount of fresh water they have and they look very blue to in a lot of areas. Also I was a little happy when they mentioned lake Winnebago because I live near it lol.
They are indeed very impressive lakes! Glad to see you enjoyed that part of the video.
I grew up in St. Clair Shores, MI. There’s nothing like the Great Lakes area, and I miss it dearly these days from down in Florida. Brilliant video!!
As a geography geek living near Hamilton, ON, I have to say how much I enjoyed this.
That makes me happy to see! Thanks for watching.
Great video! Very informative. Especially liked the hydrographic chart with relative depths of the lakes. Especially appreciated the inclusion of Lake Champlain, as it's known as "The Other Great Lake' in that region. I lived in Plattsburgh, NY for a number of years, and that region was referred to by the locals as The North Country (both sides of the lake-- NY and VT). Wish you'd mentioned the depth of Lake Champlain (yeah, I could look it up, but I'm lazy, so I won't). I sub'd and clicked the bell for notifications so I can see more of your content-- looking forward to it!
Thanks so much! Lake Champlain was an interesting case, especially with it being connected to the Erie canal. The Sea Grant story made me laugh when I read about it too.
Oh, and btw Lake Champlain has a maximum depth of 400 ft or 122 meters
@@SignoreGalilei Thank you signore! I always thought it was pretty deep at some point.
@@SignoreGalilei I will have to look up Sea Grant (sorta taps a bell, doesn't quite ring it...).
@@crustycurmudgeon2182 It's the one I briefly mentioned in the video where the University of Vermont gets money for being "on the Great Lakes"
Living north of Montreal I often drive south to the city. Evident are successive (lower) shorelines on the way, the most prominent are the one just south of St-Jerome and the one from Blainville into Ste-Therese. Now understand these were different shorelines of the Champlain Sea. Thanks for this ... I am grateful I would have been still on dry land back then, if a little colder.
Depending on exactly when in the past you're considering, you may have been on top of an ice sheet!
@@SignoreGalilei Well Ja! The video added detail to what I pass through very frequently ... not that I was unaware of the geology. Heck, anyone of us north of the 49th have iced over!
@@SignoreGalilei I'm from the same area, you can see paleoshore of the Champlain Sea all over the St-Lawrence river and lowland. From perched cliff and old sandbar. Even now forested sand dunes can be seen in Estrie. And for St-Jerome- Blainville, there is sand bars and cutted esker from the Champlain Sea that mark the slow but methodic lowering of the water level. Check the site : Sigeom for Quebec ministery of natural ressources. In the interactive map at the bottom you can check for the LIDAR map of the area. That type of map make that you can see the surface of the ground with high detail and erase human made structure/vegetation. It's a good way to see all the old rivers deltas, sand dunes, landslides, channels and a lot of other thing that are normaly masked to us.
Great to find this video, thanks! and was glad to see you talk about Lake Michigan-Huron as one lake.
You're welcome!
i lost my croc in lake Huron when i was little. Good times.
Great video!!
Thanks!
Thank you!!! More positive/educational great lakes/midwest content please!!!
You're welcome! I'll see what I can do on that front.
You forgot to add lake inferior, the secret lake under superior.
Nice one
I spit out my water I had in my mouth at this one. 😂
@kurthines-williams it's a real lake. Just an underground one
Thanks for this overview of the Great Lakes. I learned a lot and I've subscribed.
You're welcome! Thanks for the sub.
Im not necessarily a big geological or nautical buff, but as a born and raised Michigander I surprisingly enjoyed this video. Great work! You got a sub from me.
I used to live near Lake Winnebago, and it's like an inland sea. Looking across the widest section of the lake, most of the time, you can't see the other side of the lake. Lake Winnebago also produces lake effect snow in the winter, so it very much is a great lake.
That seems like a reasonable criterion there about the snow.
OshKosh B'gosh! Seen 'er with my own two eyeballs in 1981, I did. Beautiful body of water that deserves more than the mere 'lake' label. I visited Lake Winnebago from Milwaukee for about a month. Like a breath of fresh air it was. Hello from Maine. Air's pretty nice here too. I DON'T miss lake effect snow. Milwaukee saw 3 blizzards within 5 months one winter, horizontal-blowing, granular snow and all. I worked outdoors at a lumberyard. Driving a forklift in the snow is fun when the sun comes back out. I liked that part.
Lake Winnebago is perfect for making Europeans realize the size of the Great Lakes, because it's almost exactly as large as Lake Constance between Germany, Switzerland and Austria.
So you can look at a map and imagine European towns and cities sitting on its shores: Constance, Lindau, Friedrichshafen and many more. The Rhine River also emerges from Lake Constance, which is one of Europe's largest and most important streams. The area around the lake has been settled for thousands of years, making it a focal point for Europe's culture and history, and its beauty attracts millions of visitors each year.
And then you notice the large body of water in the East.
That's a cool bit of info! The Great Lakes are so big that you have to treat them like an inland sea to make sense of their importance.
I grew up in Michigan. I learned to swim in Lake Erie, used to fish for perch in Lake Huron, had friends who lived near Lake Michigan, dipped my toes in Lake Superior a few times (way too cold for me) and did some boating in Lake St. Clair so the Great Lakes will always hold a special place in my heart. I saw a documentary many years ago making the case that Lake St. Clair was formed as the result of an asteroid collision, but I'm not sure of the veracity of that claim. They truly are wonders of the world, fresh water seas that stretch for miles. It's always fun taking in the view from the Mackinac Bridge, awesome sight to behold.
It's nice to have a connection like that. There are definitely some lakes in the area that are in impact craters, but I don't think St. Clair is one of them.
As someone who lives very close to Lake Ontario, vacationed to Nippising, been to Lake eerie, visited Niagara falls many times and driven by Lake Huron, this is a very interesting video regarding the relationships of these bodies of water.
As many others said, these lakes have the valuable resource of freshwater, and the environmental fees against companies polluting them should be much higher.
I know for a fact that it is cheaper for certain large steel mills to pay the fines then upgrade their infrastructure to not pollute the air and water, and this clearly shows that stiffer penalties should be implemented.
"Great" video!
Thanks, "Great" comment!
The Winnebago RV's were named indirectly for the Native American tribe as that's how the county (in Iowa, not near Lake Winnebago) got its name.
Thank you. I crawled the comments just in case someone else had it right.
Thanks for the clarification!
In addition, the corporate headquarters for Winnebago RVs is in Forest City IA, which is the county seat for Winnebago County. Nothing to do with a lake in WI
I’ve lived on or near lake st Clair, on the US side, my entire life. When growing up, my dad calmed me and my siblings by saying “if the boat sinks, we can stand on it and still be only waist deep in water”. That was reassuring.
Yeah it's definitely not the deepest of lakes there
The Great Lakes are the largest freshwater system in the world.
The five Great Lakes - Superior, Huron, Michigan, Erie and Ontario - span a total surface area of 94,600 square miles and are all connected by a variety of lakes and rivers, making them the largest freshwater system in the world.
You left off two extremely large lakes in the northern LP that drain into Huron: Burt and Mullett and their watersheds through the Inland Waterway drain most of northern Michigan. Thanks for the video. Grew up in Detroit area and had no idea that Lake St. Clair was so big.
Burt and Mullet Lakes are indeed pretty big and quite important hydrologically, but not quite as big as Winnebago and the others the video focuses on. I had to cut the list somewhere, unfortunately. You're welcome for the video!
Hi, this was really cool.
In your research on this topic did you end up with any interesting info on the Erie Canal that isn’t widely published?
I didn't focus on the Erie Canal for this video so I don't know how much extra info I have. I did find out that it connects up to Lake Champlain by the Champlain Canal, which was constructed at the same time as the Erie Canal.
We very much enjoy paddling in all of these areas!
Sounds very fun! There's a lot of beautiful woodlands there from what I've seen.
This is exactly the type of content I love, it seems youtube reconommened me something I like for once. Subscribed!
Thanks for the subscription! Glad you like the content.
Thanks for the entertaining video. It is a really interesting area. I couldn't help but notice that almost all of the lakes were surrounded by city, I never realized that area was so heavily populated.
It's because the lakes are navigable out to the coast. Some of the surrounding land is still pretty remote though, especially northern Ontario.
Proud to be a Great Laker, living a mile south of the Lake Ontario shoreline in western NY!
Very nice! I've been in that area a few times, it's nice
Niagara county ,I assume? Some good kayaking spots up there. ( Erie county person here).
@@MrSpankee02 no Monroe.
@@jamestomkin8784 ah, good kayaking over there as well. I like irondequoit bay.
@@jamestomkin8784 Monroe ✅
The amount of lakes we have in this area is truly incredible. Michigan has over 11,000 documented lakes.
>> Minnesota enters the chat
There really are a whole lot of lakes there.
Informative, to the point, and no overly annunciated/exaggerated voice. 10/10.
Thank you!
I've been to lake Simcoe a lot in my life. Last summer I went down the Trent Severn waterway with my dad as a 3 day trip. It was pretty cool. People along the canals are very nice.
That does sound cool!
Actually the northern part of Lake Simcoe beyond the "narrows" is called Lake Couchiching.
Feels like Michigan and Huron but on a smaller scale
@@SignoreGalilei The top of L. Couchiching connects through to Georgian Bay(Huron) by way of the severn river, which is part of the trent-severn canal system to Lake Ontario. It was considered a strategic military point in the war of 1812. America could theoretically attack Upper Canada down the severn river.
@@apextroll oh man, all the war of 1812 history I've learned has been wild. So few people here in the US know much about it (besides maybe that it started in 1812)
@@SignoreGalilei Not many here know much about it either. I have family that lives in the Baltimore area and some people there think that America won the war, but do know that the White House was burned down. I have African ancestors that fought in the Revolutionary war and the war of 1812 for the British
@@apextroll That's cool family history. And yeah, it's arguable whether the British/Canadians actually "won" anything from the war or not, but the US certainly didn't.
Shoutout for my childhood hometown of Plattsburgh on beautiful Lake Champlain. The naval battles fought on Lake Champlain during the French and Indian wars, the Revolution and the War of 1812 are legendary. It is also birthplace of the U.S. Navy with Benedict Arnold commanding the American fleet against the British at the Battle of Valcour Island on October 11, 1776.
Awesome! That's a lot of fun history there.
I was happy to see Lake Champlain! Thanks for including.
You're welcome!
Some people may be surprised to know there is a great surfing on these lakes especially Superior, the east side of Lake Huron and the north and east sides of Lake Erie. No one realizes how big these lakes are until they actually see them.
They're very impressive up close - may as well be oceans when seen from the shore.
Absolutely, living in the region I’ve seen Lake Michigan and it might as well be an ocean, there’s a really nice beach by the name of Warren Dune there where you can get on a large sand dune and see the lake go on seemingly forever
Lake saint Clair is under appreciated, it one of the largest fishiest is the world, and is home to one the largest boat tie off in the world. Saint Clair can be a wild place!
I definitely enjoyed researching about it
Back in the prohibition days there was some serious booze smuggling from Canada across the lake too.
Great video! As a Wisconsinite, I love hearing about the Great Lakes and Lake Winnebago!
I traveled to Erie, PA back in 2013 and stayed at a hotel right on Lake Erie. Seeing it in person in mid November was amazing....
Cool!
Loved the way you pronounced nipigon. Lol. I live 1 hour from there and its pronouced with a gen at the end. But love the video
Yeah, another commenter mentioned the same thing. Glad you liked the video!
honestly from my experiences with lake Michigan and Huron they're different. it'd be like saying every ocean is the same because they all technically connect. but they are really different. Michigan almost always os active and kicking up fast waves with mostly rocky beaches. Meanwhile Huron is far more calmer and easier to handle for the most of the year (Ive not experienced Georgia bay). However in the winter its a different story
Some people who do oceanography do say all the oceans are the same because they connect. They do behave differently in different places, but even the Pacific in Alaska is very different than the Pacific in Hawaii.
I love the Sailor's Hornpipe midi at the end!
Thanks! I thought it would be nice.
I live right on the southern shores of Lake Ontario in New York, and I’ve also lived a bit further south in those Finger Lakes you briefly mentioned. I always love seeing videos about this type of stuff in general, but especially when it’s about “home”.
Glad I could cover your home in this video! I've visited a few times, and it's a nice place.
I guess it's not part of the Great Lakes watershed but I was expecting Lake of the Woods to be in the video. Regardless, great video and thanks for the info!
Yeah, all the glacially carved lakes in North America are pretty cool but there are quite a lot of them.
@@SignoreGalilei ... I half think Great Lakes formed recently last 20000 years due to weak rock above ancient rift. Not sure glaciers carved them, like Puget Sound an area can be low lying for many reasons and glaciers just are final straw. Glaciers often add mud and sand so net not always lower the land.... I just don't know.
@mostlyguesses8385 I think it's part glaciation, part erosion. I'm from the bottom of georgian bay, where the basaltic Niagara escarpment meets limestone cliffs. All the other rocks around here (and believe me there's a LOT of types of rock here) were left behind from the glaciers.
Lake of the Woods is huge and the protected nature there is so pristinely beautiful. Not long ago the biggest concern / challenge was to not get lost as many did.
I found it intriguing that Lake Erie did not have any connections to other bodies of water like the others. As a resident of Toledo, it would be nice to hear more geographical and hydrological information on Lake Erie. This is also the main location of my research into nutrient overload and Harmful Algae Blooms through the University of Toledo.
Thank you for the video!
Hey I'm on Swan Creek slept constructing a water purifying landscape, I have near 2 acres with wetlands and woods across from utmc, will be terraforming, would love to collaborate!
You're welcome! Maybe Lake Erie's lack of connections has to do with its comparatively shallow depth? I feel like you might know better than me. Your research sounds very interesting.
What do you mean? Niagara Falls is a connection, and the st clair Rapids was too... Lotta good any toledo education would do anyone... city's filled with morons. I tried to seize turtle island early on in 2022 because the owner James neumann, didn't pay his taxes in 20 years. The Township agreed that my plan of restoring the island was good, but broke federal ethics laws anyways and warned neumann, and he paid the 5k he owed, they refused to foreclose, then sold the land for 75k to a land speculating cop that bought the Detroit river lighthouse, Daryl Jamieson. James neumann accused me of seeking the sinking island for speculation, even though it originally belonged to an ancestor of mine. It's been neglected for 119 years, and looks to be neglected till resold, all cause a Canadian wanted it. I moved overseas cause I didn't want to be a part of such a corrupt continent any longer.
@@ironhell808 I’m sorry that politics ruined your attempt to restore the island. It is sad to see all of the history that Turtle Island has be destroyed so easily. The island itself is not suited for people, so cleaning it up and making it livable for wildlife would be the best option. Possibly making a small memorial or commemorative structure?
I know that Lake Erie has connections via Niagara Falls and St Clair Lake. However, it’s the only Great Lake that’s fed mostly by tributaries and other lakes mentioned in the video dump into it. The geographical and hydrological factors are different. Studying this information could be beneficial to my research regarding nutrient overload.
@@Plarux "nutrient overload" is a new name for a long-recognized and understood cycle of waterways. It's not new. Man-made engineering projects stabilize and slow transition of lakes into land.
i love lake Nipissing, thanks for the great video.
You're welcome!
Speaking of great things, it's great to see a video from this channel blow up
Thanks! I'm excited to get so many new people on board.
Small correction, the smaller lake next to Nipissing is called Trout Lake not Lake Trout (which is a type of fish). Nipissing is 15 feet deep on average and Trout Lake is about 200 feet deep.
Thanks for the correction. I think I was just too much in the mindset of "Lake X" with all the other lakes in the area.
Lake St. Claire is very important ..... huge amounts of wildlife depend on this area. It's not to be trifled with either... all the same storm conditions can pop up & doom ships and small craft there just as easy as any other Great lake.
That sounds very dramatic! I guess the wind doesn't stop just because you're on a somewhat smaller lake.
In a way lake St. Claire is the opposite of the finger lakes. Lake St. Claire is shallow enough that its basically a pond except its wide (surface area) enough to be easily seen from space with minimal zooming. In contrast the Finger lakes are very long and narrow to the point that looking across the short dimension feels like looking across any minor lake, and yet they all are nearly 1000ft deep.
Its crazy how despite the same glacier/icesheet carving out all these bodies of water they ended up so different.
@@SignoreGalilei very true - my grandfather and his friend capsized on Lake St. Claire once and held onto boats edge for over two hours before being spotted and rescued. It was so bad they both thought it could be the end as sun was setting & they said their piece to each other... pretty dramatic as my grandfather was a seasoned sailor that served in Merchant Marine service.
@@csnide6702 Woah! That's a crazy story. Did he keep going out on the lakes?
I put down St. Claire (and misspelled it to) earlier, forgetting how fast our prevailing winds can kick up a ruckus there. Just like on Erie, the shallowest of the Lakes, it doesn't take a lot to get some pretty serious wave action!
This was really interesting. Thank you ❤🇨🇦
I grew up hanging out around Lake Simcoe and Nipissing, and I don’t hear many people talk about them so I’m glad they’re both mentioned here🤘
Thanks! Glad I could bring some attention to them.
As a contrast the largest lake in Britain (Windemere) is less than 6 square miles.
Windermere is just the largest in England - Loch Lomond in Scotland is 27 square miles. If you count Northern Ireland (part of the UK but not the island of Britain) there's also Lough Neagh at 148 square miles.
Here in Texas, almost* every lake is a dammed up river. As a kid, seeing the Finger Lakes filled me with envy
*Caddo Lake on our border with Lousiana is mostly natural. With cypress trees and gators it is nothing like those deep blue remnants of the Ice Age
It is really a different kind of lake. There are plenty of other cool natural features in Texas to make up for it though.
Don't feel too bad about Texas not having large natural lakes. The fact is, outside of the areas that experienced glacier erosion in prehistoric times very few states have natural lakes of any real size. Outside of these areas in the U.S., natural lakes larger than about 7 square miles (for reference: a circle with a diameter of about 3 miles) tend to be in low-lying swampy areas (i.e.: Florida; southern Louisiana,) the remnants of older lakes drying up (i.e.: Great Salt Lake,) or mountain areas where the runoffs are filling large naturally occurring bowls (i.e.: Lake Tahoe.)
Love your video. I've lived I the great lakes region most of my life. I feel privileged to be here.
Glad you enjoyed the video! I don't live there but I've visited several times. It's a pretty great place to be.
Thank you for this! Great video - these are now roadtrip ideas for my wife and I!
You're welcome! Hope you get the chance to have a fun road trip.
I live between lake Erie and lake Ontario , the amount of polution i see is discusting, ive lived on the lakes all my life and everyone acts like they are so precious yet nobody is out there cleaning the beaches or addressing the out of control zebra muscles killing our lakes ......we suck as humans , we know better and do worse ........greed and selfishness, thats what we will be remembered for , not living as one to better OUR ONLY SAFE HAVEN , are you aware of another planet we can live on ? No ? Then be better humans......
I was glad to hear that the link between the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes is closed permanently. Did the invasive fish and the Zebra mussels ever get eradicated?
I don't think they're completely gone. There's also another link between the Great Lakes and Mississippi in Chicago, but there's an electric fish barrier that's supposed to keep the invasive species out.
@@SignoreGalilei Tom Scott did a video on this electric trap recently. Pretty neat.
During floods the Minnesota river joins the Red River of the north, can float steamships across the northsouth continental divide, that's the closest we get to unlandlocking the midwest...
No....and the saltys still enter the lakes.
No unfortunately not, but steps are being taken by the NYDEC to mitigate their and other threats.
Lived in The Niagara area my whole life, Right between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, they have always had me in awe of their massive size. Used to think it was the ocean when I was a little kid
They may as well be in some respects!
i live in an island in lake ontario and these lakes are my home. it’s hard to explain they just have a special feeling to me.
That's pretty cool. It's nice to be connected to your home like that.
i thought you'd talk about canada's great lakes like great slave lake and great bear lake lol, those are def not that talked about
I agree. That might be a good topic for the future
@@SignoreGalilei do it, most Americans don’t know much if at all about these lakes
@@SignoreGalilei e per farlo
The Mediocre Lakes
I like to think of them as at least pretty good lakes, but you can make your own decisions haha
Living on the Detroit River, fishing Erie and St Clair yearly, it's easy to take this for granted when you see it everyday. Truly grateful to be around the water and for it to be a part of my daily life!
It's always nice to be grateful for such things!
Excellent. Informative and entertaining. I live in the Great Lakes region by Lake Michigan and have been to Lake Superior out on a houseboat for a week and to Lake Erie. I love the Great Lakes. This was great. Thanks.
You're welcome, thanks for sharing!
I just found your channel, your content is top knotch. Subscribed! Keep up the great work!
Thanks for the sub! Glad you like the content.
Great video I love learning new stuff and I all ready think I know everything! My Summer place is where Lake Ontario ends and the St. Lawrence begins
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That sounds like a lovely place. It makes me happy that I can help you learn.
i grew up on the shores of lake simcoe. the area has such an interesting history! even though i moved away, it’ll always be home to me ♥️
It sounds like a lovely place. Maybe I'll get to visit someday.
I like the little naval song at the end. Nice touch 👍🏻
Thanks!
I had known the names of a few of these, but I didn't know the connections. thanks for this!
You're welcome!
I live right on the shore of Lake Simcoe! Loved this video, I enjoyed seein’ my lake talked about!
Thanks, glad I could talk about a lake that's meaningful to you
Thank you. This is good and very informative!!! Have a great New Year!!!
You're welcome, you too!
All lakes are great! So was this video! I really enjoyed watching that!
Thanks!
Super cool. Love geography and these videos.
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed these videos