Due to an error in judgment, I listened to various sound bites from last night’s “debate.” At least I know better than to have a television. When the din threatened to overwhelm me, I turned to contemplating the Great Lakes. Collectively they are the largest body of fresh surface water in the world. They are larger and older and far more magnificent than many topics that might obsess a person these days.
Thanks to the satellites that trundle along through the stars, I can see them from space.
Credit: Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC. The image was acquired on December 26, 2003, by the Terra satellite.
If you click on that the image will be big enough that you can even see Torch Lake from space.
To stand on the shore of any one of them as a storm approaches is to glimpse true power, and to understand the limits of human pride.
Right here I would love to show you the dramatic South Haven Pier and Lighthouse photo, but I did not take it. Mark Bugnaski of the Kalamazoo Gazette took it. Way to go, Mark. It was posted on MLive.com last fall. I recommend you follow the link. Really.
They are full of life.
Under the water you will find the whitefish and lake trout and salmon and perch that I love to eat. You will also find many invasive species that would probably like to eat me. Don’t get me started on Asian Carp. This Foodweb diagram represents just a fraction of the 134 fish species and who knows how many species of invertebrates and zooplankton who live in the Great Lakes.
Lake Michigan Food Web, NOAA – NOAA – Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory Sea Grant Extension Educator
Above the waves dance any number of birds. The gulls and I have agreed that neither of us will attack the other. Go ahead, take a little minute to click on the photo for a nice big view. We’ll wait for you.
Rainbow with gulls by Babs Young, 2010
They give life and they take life away.
Shipwrecks dot the coastlines everywhere, especially in the Manitou Passage and in Lake Superior. Some are visible through clear waters on calm days. Others lie too deep to see. One of the best known is the Edmund Fitzgerald. Another is the scow-schooner Silver Lake. Its resting place in Lake Michigan near Sheboygan Wisconsin is a National Historic Landmark. The Silver Lake was a small trading schooner that worked the Lake Michigan lumber trade in the late 19th century. It sank in a collision with the Pere Marquette car ferry in dense fog in 1900.
The Silver Lake scow-schooner sank in 1900 in Lake Michigan. National Park Service photo.
They are part of the longest border in the world–and so far at least there is no wall.
At least I think the longest border part is true, and Wikepedia contributors think so too. I know the no wall part is true. Canada lets me in all the time. Not that Canada and the U.S. don’t pay attention to who’s coming across our long, long border, but we are nice about it. Soreheads on both sides will disagree, but we are more than good neighbors; we are cousins. OK, cousins can squabble. It has been more than 200 years since our last serious quarrel, and I intend to do my part to keep it that way. For one thing, I want to keep my options open. (See Cape Breton if Trump wins.)
They change all the time. Nothing is forever.
The Great Lakes “turn over” seasonally as the temperatures of different layers change. The layers rise and fall accordingly, and are mixed by winds, creating aquatic diversity. (There is a good explanation of turnover on this handy-dandy science lesson on the Properties of Water at the Michigan Sea Grant website. It is meant for middle schoolers but I found it right up my alley.)
Water levels in the Great Lakes have been much higher and much lower over the millennia. They will undoubtedly be much higher and much lower again. You can see the benches for yourself quite clearly at the Antrim Creek Natural Area. (See The Weatherman Contemplates Tiger Rock.)
I find these facts comforting. They suggest that these parlous times, too, shall pass, and that the Republic may stand.
Torch Lake Views 
Martha
February 26, 2016
That gorgeous hypnotic color of the lakes is the ONLY thing I miss about Door County.
“Nothing is forever”. Good and bad. Winter and Summer. Always dualities on this planet.
Gerry
February 26, 2016
Ah, but I am full of dualities. I guess it’s just as well this is my home planet!
Martha
February 26, 2016
We all are full of dualities, Earthling.
Gerry
February 26, 2016
GAAHH!!
dawnkinster
February 26, 2016
I was just telling my husband that if Donald wins I want to move to Italy.
Gerry
February 26, 2016
Italy has potential. Mediterranean diet, excellent wines, history everywhere. I don’t know, though. I can’t see myself living too far from the Great Lakes.
tootlepedal
February 26, 2016
Good information. Don’t listen to the ‘debates’. It is bad for your health.
Gerry
February 26, 2016
You speak–OK, write–good sense.
P.j. grath
February 27, 2016
Oh, Gerry! Fresh water, fresh breeze, SANITY! Thank you this morning from my side of the water!
Gerry
February 27, 2016
Waving back atcha PJ!
WOL
February 27, 2016
You are more intimate with large bodies of water than I am, living as I do in the flatlands. Our nearest Large Body of Water is about 650 miles to the SE, AKA the Gulf of Mexico. There’s a whole lot of TX between it and me. If I was a pundit, I might say you have more water than state, and we have more state than water. We have gulls, too. The playa lake down the street has a fair contingent. We also have gallinules (and spelled it right on the first try!), grebes and the odd coot, old and otherwise.
Gerry
February 27, 2016
A long time ago we used to visit my grandfather in Florida. We would walk to the white sand beach on the Gulf of Mexico and look for shells. It was very beautiful. I love to visit landscapes unlike my own, but I feel a deep need to live just where I do, in the midst of freshwater lakes, the bigger the better. I like rivers, too.
There is a great deal of Texas no matter how you look at it.
I had to look up gallinules. Very decorative, aren’t they! We don’t have those at all. We do have odd old coots. They are the source of some of my best stories.
Karma
February 28, 2016
Visiting a Great Lake is on my bucket list.
Gerry
February 28, 2016
You have five excellent choices, with blog friends littered all about the beaches. You could even make a grand tour of it, but then we’d all want to come along.
Karma
February 28, 2016
That could be a fun road trip some summer!
shoreacres
February 29, 2016
I was fascinated to see that your lakes also turn over. That’s about a twice-a-year phenomenon here, although it can happen more often, depending on conditions. Unfortunately, when our turning-time comes, what’s turning over in our shallow bays leaves the water looking a bit like — well, nothing appetizing, let’s just say that.
Of course, our beaches are quite different, too, because of all the rivers that flow into them. Down south, toward Padre Island, there’s nice, white sand, but here, it’s all brown and gravelly. But it’s ours, and some of us love it.
We have gallinules, too! Sometimes we have the purple, but we always have the common, and I got a couple of photos of some just yesterday, when I was down the coast a bit, prowling a wildlife refuge. I was trying to photograph some diving ducks, and managed one almost-in-focus picture of one’s wake, with water droplets in the air. If I keep working, I’ll be ready to take a photo like that fabulous lighthouse.
I love storms.
Gerry
February 29, 2016
I love storms up to a point. Mama Nature has met that threshhold already this year.
We can get a good deal of green goo along the Bay when conditions are right–or I suppose I should say when conditions are wrong. The goo is nasty, smelly stuff. It stains the Cowboy’s paws and I always worry that it will make the dogs sick.
Mostly we are blessed with the classic sandbox sand. If it ever gets warm again I’ll show you some pictures of all of us sitting down there admiring the sunset. I think if a person has a big body of clean water and a sunny day, the person will love whatever kind of sand borders the body of clean water. It’s all really good.
You can send a picture of a diving duck trailing water droplets. I would like to see that.