50 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.