They are both on the Ontario side, I know for sure the first picture is in Scarborough (Toronto) and I think the 2nd is also but dont know for sure.
They are both on the Ontario side, I know for sure the first picture is in Scarborough (Toronto) and I think the 2nd is also but dont know for sure.
Here's my pano of the St. Lawrence River at Quebec:
The Great Lakes--there is a lyric that evokes the Great Lakes like no other:
Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings
In the ruins of her ice water mansions
Old Michigan steams like a young man's dreams,
The islands and bays are for sportsmen.
And farther below Lake Ontario
Takes in what Lake Erie can send her
And the iron boats go as the mariners all know
With the gales of November remembered
You can't listen to "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" and not think of those wonderful, majestic and powerful lakes.
SOME say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Robert Frost (1874–1963) (From Harper’s Magazine, December 1920.)
Nice lyrics- now Stan Rogers was a singer with a sense of geography and economics.
I lived in the midwest for two years and loved being out there. The Great Lakes are unique and I get frustrated when people say "they're just like the ocean!", esp. people from the midwest who are defensive. In fact they are much more unique than the ocean. There are only a few sets of great lakes in the world, none as big as this one. I have a friend in Door County and have spent time there- people call it the Cape Cod of the midwest but I like to say that Cape Cod is the Door County of the east.
My favorite is Lake Superior- its just so big. I also like Lake Michigan.
On another note, I remember that there are a couple of very large lakes in Manitoba as well- I assume they are not "Great Lakes" but geographically are they related? I think they might be called Lake Manitoba and Lake Winnipeg but I am not sure.
Masswich.....My favorite is also Lake Superior.
Concerning those other lakes.....
Lake Winnipeg is a big lake. If it was part of the Great Lakes water basin it would be another, registering in just slightly smaller than Lake Erie (9940 square miles).
Lake Winnipeg's 9465 square miles would place it ahead of Lake Ontario (7540).
Canada has a couple other big lakes.....Great Bear Lake (12,275) and Great Slave Lake (10,980). Of course, the bigger Great Lakes overshadow these.....Lake Superior (31,820), Lake Huron (23,010), and Lake Michigan (22,178).
Let's not call the Caspian Sea (144,000) a lake. It has salt and is rapidly shrinking, due to some dam construction. So much for Beluga Caviar.
One (1) of the inland Canadian lakes near the northern side of Lake Superior flows into Lake Superior. Not sure which one (1) and if I remember correctly, this also has something to do with damns and reversed water flow.
BTW.....You can be in northern Minnesota and drop water on the ground. Some flows to the Missisippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. Some flows to the Great Lakes, via Lake Superior, and eventually the Atlantic Ocean (Gulf of St. Lawrence). and some north, to Hudson Bay.
Bear
Occupy Cyburbia!
I just wanna know if the Chicago side is so lovely then why does W. Mich, get all the FIB's coming in on weekends speeding, tailgating and in a great hurry to get to their cottages/million dollar write offs?
Was just up at Wilderness state park, pure heaven. COld cold water, but we spent an hour in that divine crystal clear concoction. The sands were hot hot, and the roads twisty and windy through the dunes and hills. I was born on the shores of the Atlantic but I love Lake Michigan. (cept when the alewives come in and stink up the shore)
Originally posted by Jen
I just wanna know if the Chicago side is so lovely then why does W. Mich, get all the FIB's coming in on weekends speeding, tailgating and in a great hurry to get to their cottages/million dollar write offs?
- The better part of the lakefront land in Illinois and Indiana is public, with the remainder being very expensive
- Because of all of the advertising the Michigan tourism bureau does in Chicago, people assume that they are wanted there.
I think you're talking about Lake Nipigon? There's also Lake of the Woods to the west of Superior bordering the USA, Manitoba and Ontario!
Either way, this is a great idea for a thread. I was born in Toronto and have been living here for the last twenty years or so. I've only visited four of the five lakes, Superior being the only one that's escaped my grasp because our family never bothered to actually go that far for anything. I haven't visited Lake Michigan in years, but I'll be able to soon (going to Chicago next month!) If I had to describe them, Huron would be the rugged wild one, Erie the busier active one and Ontario kind of a mix between the two.
Torontonians I'd have to generalise, don't have a very strong marine or sea-faring way of life. We've been warned since birth that the lake's water is dirty, and even to this day, many of the city's beaches are closed due to e-coli dangers and such. Nobody goes fishing, and tanning by the beach isn't as popular as it could be. For a city that's right on the lake, we don't capitalise on it much. Just at the bend of the Golden Horseshoe in Hamilton, the city's got a nasty reputation of being a manufacturing centre with disgusting water in its harbour. It's only further east and south that the lake culture is really cultivated. Around the Thousand Islands where Lake Ontario becomes the St. Lawrence seaway, there's a more of an outdoors active lifestyle there, with fishing and boating being really active hobbies. It's splendid out there, and there are mansions and castles built onto the islands with ferries taking you back and forth from the mainland. South of Toronto obviously is Niagara Falls which is beautiful as well, but in a touristy way. There are lots of vineyards here where the famous Niagara Ice wine is being grown. It's really fertile land with few large cities and the Niagara Escarpment that travels from Niagara Falls (hence the big drop) up to Bruce Peninsula by Lake Huron is breathtaking in its scope and the variety of activities that can be done there.
Ontario has a really good location within the Great Lakes region since it's in direct contact with four of the five lakes (Michigan being the only one not, and thus the one that we all hated when we were young, haha). Further north is Lake Simcoe with Barrie on the west side of that (the site of Canada's Live 8) and even north of that is Lake Huron. You can also travel from Trenton, Ontario by Lake Ontario and navigate through the Trent-Severn waterway, 386 kms of canals and rivers and lakes that connect Lake Ontario to Lake Huron. The area is Southern Ontario's cottage country. Conversely, you can also travel from Ottawa along the Ottawa River to Lake Ontario through the Rideau Canal. The Welland Canal along the Niagara Peninsula also cuts between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie so that boats can go up and down without tumbling over the Falls, heh.
I guess I never really thought about the relevance that growing up in this area has had on my upbringing, but I suppose it's unique in this aspect. The Great Lakes offer a lot of opportunities for all sorts of activities!
Anyways, here are some pictures!
The Rideau Canal in Ottawa, it turns into a giant skating rink in winter when it freezes over
Trent-Severn waterway - used now only for pleasure boats
Niagara Falls
Tobermory on the Bruce Peninsula, ferry to Manitoulin Island (largest freshwater island in the world! very very windy)
Last edited by timeo; 26 Jul 2005 at 3:30 PM.
I grewup in Alpena, MI which is directly across Lake Huron from Georgian Bay and I have always wanted to explore that area.
Hate to nit-pick, but all the Great Lakes are directly connected to each other:
Michigan to Huron via the 5-mile wide Straits of Mackinaw (really Michigan and Huron are just one large lake), Superior to Huron via St. Mary's river/Soo Locks, Huron to Erie via Lake St. Clair and Detroit River, Erie to Ontario via Niagara River.
I'm sorry. Is my bias showing?
Uh, of course, that's why they're called the Great Lakes!
If you wander around the internet you can find good arguments.....on both sides.....of why Lake Huron and Lake Michigan should be considered just one (1) single lake. Still, as a person who has been across the Mackinac Bridge hundreds of times, I still think of Huron to the east and Michigan to the west.
Bear
Occupy Cyburbia!
I spent my summers in South Haven on Lake Michigan (literally, our condowas less than 100' from the water w/o a bluff) till I was 15. I have many many stories to tell but don't have time.
Perhaps one of the neatest and most scary things I remember is going out to our condo for christmas vacation and a strong winter storm came in across the lake. The waves were so big that they were crashing into the sea wall in front of our condo and splashing onto the condo covering it in a sheet of ice.
Watching the storms roll across the lake is awesome.
More recently I have been able to explore northern lake michigan and superior.
Here is a link http://www.adventure-club.org/photos_q.html from a recent trip to Northern Lake Michigan Sleeping Bear Dunes. Just amazing.
I also just got back from Door County, WI (green bay on one side, Lake Michgian on the other). We kayaked from Gills Rock to Washington, Detroit, Pilot, and Plum Islands. Half way through the wind and waves picked up out of nowhere. The power of the lakes are awesone.
Bear, if your going to list Toledo as a major city on the shore of Lake Erie, then I am gonna brag about my hometown, Erie. Pennsylvania's only Great Lakes Port. While not as large as Toledo, We are still a major city on the lake.
http://www.eriecountyplanning.org/er...esque-erie.jpg
Erie from across the Bay
http://www.eriecountyplanning.org/er...presque001.jpg
http://www.eriecountyplanning.org/er...presque002.jpg
Our Beaches
http://www.eriecountyplanning.org/er...%20landing.jpg
Dobbins Landing on Erie's Bayfront
http://www.eriecountyplanning.org/eriepics/ballpark.jpg
Jerry Ult Park Home of the Seawolves
http://www.eriecountyplanning.org/eriepics/abrig008.jpg
US Brig Niagara
Last edited by NHPlanner; 30 May 2006 at 4:47 PM.
From the Indianapolis Star, Thursday, July 28, 2005
http://www2.indystar.com/articles/9/...-1139-127.html
PERSPECTIVE: Researchers investigate Lake Erie dead zone
Highlight:
TOLEDO, OHIO -- No one knows exactly why there are two parts of Lake Erie where the water is low in oxygen.
Researchers have spent the last few years studying these so-called "dead zones." Some suspect they've been in the lake for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
Now the big question is whether these dead zones are something to be worried about or whether they are simply naturally occurring and pose no threat to the health of Lake Erie and its fish.
___
On the Net:
Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory: http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/
ODNR Lake Erie Fisheries Unit: http://www.dnr.ohio.gov/wildlife/Fishing/fairport/
Lake Erie Charter Boat Association: http://www.lecba.com/
Oddball
Why don't you knock it off with them negative waves?
Why don't you dig how beautiful it is out here?
Why don't you say something righteous and hopeful for a change?
From Kelly's Heroes (1970)
Are you sure you're not hurt ?
No. Just some parts wake up faster than others.
Broke parts take a little longer, though.
From Electric Horseman (1979)
For those who are browsing this thread but aren't sure of all the major cities (metros) that border the Great Lakes, here they are.....
Huge, Millions & Millions Of People
Chicago
Detroit
Toronto
Pretty Dang Big, With A Few Million
Cleveland
Milwaukee
Buffalo
Major Cities, 100,000 & Up
Toledo
Green Bay
Thunder Bay
Sault Ste. Marie
Erie
Hamilton
Oshawa
Duluth-Superior
Dang Close To A Great Lake
Rochester
Grand Rapids
Akron
Saginaw
Bear
Occupy Cyburbia!
Having grown up near lake Erie and having visited all the great lakes but Superior, I miss the sense of history one gets in the costal areas, the sheer beauty of the lakes, etc. When I was younger we would always go up to the lake on weekends for a picnic, etc, and every summer we went to Niagara Falls (the Ontario side).
Sometimes I wish I lived closer than I currently do (just a couple hours, but it's completely different). Then I remember the lake effect snow....
Also Appleton/Oshkosh, WI.
I am less than 45 minutes' drive time from Lake Michigan.
Mike
Sorry to join so late, but thought a good story about Lake Superior was in order.
On a November visit to Ashland, Wisconsin for work I stayed in the Chequamegon Hotel on the waterfront. The weather turned seasonally cold that night and by the next morning all of Chequamegon Bay had frozen over - all at once. That's about 15 miles of open water!
On the other end of winter, it's not unusual to see ice floating by in mid-May.
From the Indianapolis Star - Headline and Article:
Rip currents recently found in Great Lakes
Discovery comes as a surprise because deadly flows had been linked only to oceans.
SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- Most summer days, the shoreline of Lake Michigan looks inviting. Warm, soft sand. A gentle breeze. Rolling waves.
But in an instant, such serenity can turn deadly.
That's what happened July 4, 2003, when seven people drowned within hours along a three-mile stretch of Berrien County (Mich.) beach.
It's what happens each summer on American waterways, contributing to about 100 deaths a year.
It's called a rip current, a fast-moving and deadly force of water, once thought only to occur on ocean shorelines.
Scientists have only recently confirmed that the phenomenon occurs daily along Lake Michigan's 1,638 miles of sandy coastline. In fact, rip currents can be found on any sandy shore where waves are present. And at almost any time.
"A lot of people don't know rip currents occur on the Great Lakes. We didn't know until recently," says Ron Kinnunen, a Marquette, Mich., agent for Michigan Sea Grant, a joint program between the University of Michigan and Michigan State University that studies this natural occurrence. "Some of the rip currents on Lake Michigan can rival those of Southern California."
Rip currents form when wind and wave conditions combine to push water onto a beach, forming a sandbar close to shore.
Eventually, "the sandbar rips open, and water pours out through that point," explained Jennifer Read, associate director of Michigan Sea Grant. "It's very swift, and it's almost literally perpendicular to the shoreline."
These minirivers of fast-moving water can cut across the surf zone, carrying sand, debris and sometimes swimmers out to sea.
Although rip currents usually run out of steam beyond the breakers, they can move faster than 5 mph and carry even Olympic swimmers hundreds of yards offshore. Many swimmers who try to fight rip currents quickly exhaust themselves and drown.
"There were about 30 drownings related to rip currents in Lake Michigan in 2002 and 2003," Kinnunen said. "People don't even have to be swimming. They can be in waist-deep water when a rip current knocks their feet out from under them."
According to the U.S. Lifesaving Association, 80 percent of all rescues on U.S. beaches are related to rip currents.
Oddball
Why don't you knock it off with them negative waves?
Why don't you dig how beautiful it is out here?
Why don't you say something righteous and hopeful for a change?
From Kelly's Heroes (1970)
Are you sure you're not hurt ?
No. Just some parts wake up faster than others.
Broke parts take a little longer, though.
From Electric Horseman (1979)
I grew up on Lake Erie, about 50 miles west (by the Thruway definition of west) of Buffalo- in not what I would call the most charming of small cities, but it gets plenty of visitors throughout the year, maily in summer: the Walleye fishing, evidently, cannot be beat.
Winter along the lake cannot be beat in terms of constantly changing scenery. Walking out on the ice (shh...don't tell mom!) and feeling it rock with the waves is always a fun little cheap thrill.
Since I've been away from my hometown, I've always lived in areas with lakes or rivers. Ever find it weird when you visit a "dry" place? Sometimes I just think to myself "...but where's the water?"
I know the feeling places like Vegas or Phenoix just seem to be freaky because there is really no water there (okay there is lake mead, but thats a fake lake). It really makes me wonder how sustainable an area like that is. Of course those folks look at the great lakes and wonder how we can live in the cold with a shrinking manufacturing base of employers and probaly say he same thing!.
I to think it is weird.
Another thing I find weird is going to FLAT places. I remember one time I was working on a recreation plan for a community in Michigans Thumb region. One of the primary recreation facilities they wated was a sledding hill.
I could not believe it. I couldn't imaging being a kid, or an adult and never being on a sled in the winter. Just seemed so odd to me.
North Bass Island is in the western basin of Lake Erie, about thirty-five (35) nautical miles from Toledo, OH. South of this small island is Middle Bass Island and South Bass Island. A few miles east of these rocky-shorelined islands is Kelley's Island. This area is a very popular tourist area in the midwest. There are thousands of boaters, cottages, vacationers, etc. that play in this water wonderland. The Walleye fishing is considered the "best in the world". Small mouth bass fishing, just off the islands, is world-famous. And every summer, the little drinking village with a fishing problem (Put-In-Bay, on South Bass Island), is filled with hard-core party people, wandering through all of the taverns that are in the village.
North Bass Island is very small and very quiet. It was owned by a Winery and purchased by the State of Ohio, for development as a possible state park or natural area.
The Ottawa Indians of Oklahoma have claimed in a very recent lawsuit that the maps and charts used during two (2) seperate treaties.....many years ago.....were incorrect. The Ottawas are saying that the line separating Canada and what was a very young United States of America is SOUTH of North Bass Island. If that is correct, the treaties would have not ceded North Bass Island to the USA, because it would have been part of Canada.
Some experts believe that this is only a political ploy by the Ottawa Indians to get a foothold in Ohio and help to establish casino gambling.
BTW.....this area of Ohio is "Ottawa" County.
Bear
Occupy Cyburbia!
Actually Bear Rochester does officially touch Lake Ontario
B U F F L O
in
E R I E N I A G A R A O N T R I O land
Buffalo Toronto together from space
And of course Buffalo's Lake Erie legacy.....Snooooow
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