Water water everywhere, and what a lot to drink.

We've spent the last week or so skirting around the Southern edge of Lake Superior, the largest of the Great Lakes.

We joined the Great Lakes at Mackinaw, where the Mackinac bridge spans the straits between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron - the two lower lakes in the map below. Then across to the relatively narrow link between Lake Huron and Lake Superior - the black border line snakes through to Lake Superior at the top where Soo Locks are. We then travelled along the coastline to buy some bread and see some pretty cliffs, and then down a mine in the West before heading down into unknown Wisconsin.

It's difficult to get a grip on Lake Superior, because unless you're up in a spacecraft, it can't be seen in its entirety. I mean it's very, very big. It's the third largest freshwater lake in the world based on surface area, and according to three sources, there is enough water in Lake Superior to cover the entire land mass of North and South America with roughly 1 foot (30 cm) of water. (Though maybe those three sources got their facts from each other…)

Lake Huron meets Lake Superior at this strait. That's Canada on the other side.

It's 350 miles long by 160 miles wide - which for my British friends is the equivalent of stretching from Portsmouth to Leeds and from Birmingham to Norwich. It's also 1333ft deep - which for my American friends is exactly the same distance as the worlds longest frisbee throw - over a quarter of a mile.

The creation of the Soo locks around 150 years ago bypassed the dangerous rapids where Lake Superior flowed into Lake Huron, and meant that natural resources could be shipped out around the world.




                          Nowadays 164 million tons is shipped around the lakes every year.

This ship is about 800 feet long. How does it get into the lock? Very, very, very, slowly.

I didn't take this photo.

One problem with this is the fact that every year it freezes up - ice two feet thick on average.

USCGC Mackinaw icebreaker (retired).

But such is the importance of the waterways that they have icebreakers plying the lakes at the start of the thaw. That gives an extra two months of shipping.

Six diesel engines as taller than a man, just to crush ice.

As is the case with a lot places nowadays, invasive species have populated the lakes, the most damaging being the Sea Lamprey. It's decimated native fish populations, to the extent that a lot of commercial fisheries have gone bust. (Overfishing didn't help.)  However, it's still a very clean lake, which surprised us considering the population living around it.

Lovely today, but in a storm waves can reach fifty feet up these cliffs.

Visibility is on average 24 feet, sometimes up to 70 feet. (You're lucky if you can see the hand in front of your face in the English Channel.)

Pictured Rocks near Munising. They show the minerals in the rocks leaching out.

Millions of holidaymakers like us come here both summer and winter, helping to keeping the region economically viable. Tour guides we've chatted to have different jobs for each season.

Certainly cool and certainly clear water.

For the last week the Lake has been on our right hand side as we've travelled Michigan's Upper Peninsular, but now it's sadly time to say goodbye to the Great Lakes and head South to the State of cheese, Wisconsin.


(Looking up my facts, I discovered that in the early days there was a Jesuit name for Lake Superior - Lac Tracy. It didn't catch on though...)