Freshwater Sea

Thought you might be interested in some more info about Lake Michigan and the Great Lakes.

(And even if you're not... tough!)     ;-)

Lake Michigan -- what my family fondly calls "The Big Lake" and subject of my previous post -- is not even the largest of the Great Lakes.  That distinction belongs to Lake Superior.  Properly speaking, some geologists have it that Lake Michigan and Lake Huron are not actually two separate bodies of water, either.

But Lake Huron, being on the eastern shore of Michigan, has mostly rocky beaches for us, whereas Lake Michigan, being on our western shore, has mostly lovely sandy beaches.  And Lake Superior, being north of our Upper Peninsula, is far too inaccessible for most of us -- besides being ridiculously cold even in the height of summer.

So for my family, as for many Michiganians (or Michiganders, as some prefer), Lake Michigan is what we mainly think of when we think of the Great Lakes.

Here, a map from this website:

GreatLakesMap

Here, a quote from this website:

"Great Lakes
Facts and Figures
 Overview
VOLUME
6 quadrillion gallons of fresh water; one-fifth of the world's fresh surface water (only the polar ice caps and Lake Baikal in Siberia contain more); 95 percent of the U.S. supply. Spread evenly across the continental U.S., the Great Lakes would submerge the country under about 9.5 feet of water.
 
TOTAL AREA
More than 94,000 square miles/244,000 square kilometres of water (larger than the states of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire combined, or about 23 percent of the province of Ontario). About 295,000 square miles/767,000 square kilometres in the watershed (the area where all the rivers and streams drain into the lakes).
 
TOTAL COASTLINE
United States and Canada -- 10,900 mi/17,549 km (including connecting channels, mainland and islands). The Great Lakes shoreline is equal to almost 44 percent of the circumference of the earth, and Michigan's Great Lakes coast totals 3,288 mi/5,294 km, more coastline than any state but Alaska. "

*****

Okay, enough "dry" (ha! couldn't resist) facts and figures.

Here's the thing: 

Michiganians love our big waters with a fierce and irrational passion.  You may not be a boater, you may not even like swimming, but you cannot fail to be moved when you see the big lakes in person.  It shapes you, to grow up here. 

When my grandparents first started wintering in Arizona, before we had kids, my husband and I went out to visit them a few times.  And we fell in love with Arizona too; the desert is beautiful out there. 

And the Grand Canyon -- !  Words fail me to describe that, and I'm nothing if not lippy, so that humbles me.

But, I don't think I could move out to Arizona permanently.  The desert is beautiful, but that parched land is too austere for me.  I need to feast my eyes on vast expanses of blue water, on a regular basis. 

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the feeling I got in the Grand Canyon -- that I was immediately hooked on and would love to go back and get more of -- is the same feeling I get on the Big Lake.  When I stand on Sleeping Bear Dune looking west past the Manitou Islands, west to the horizon over that blue water.  When I go over the Mackinac Bridge.  When I sailed under the Mackinac Bridge.  When I'm at Pictured Rocks.  When my husband and I drove to the very tippy end of the Keweenaw Peninsula, jutting far north out into Lake Superior; and when we think about, someday, taking the ferry from there to Isle Royale.

And I bet I'm not the only Michiganian who feels that way.