What is the Great Lakes region known for?
The Great Lakes are the largest freshwater system in the world. The five Great Lakes - Superior, Huron, Michigan, Erie and Ontario - span a total surface area of 94,600 square miles and are all connected by a variety of lakes and rivers, making them the largest freshwater system in the world.
Which country established settlements in the Great Lakes region?
France took the lead in colonizing the Upper Midwest region. From the early sixteenth century on, French soldiers, missionaries and fur traders left their slight mark upon the St. Lawrence valley, the upper Great Lakes and points west.
Which Europeans settled in the Great Lakes?
The French explorers. The French colonists of the St. Lawrence River valley were the first Europeans to move into the western Great Lakes, or pays d'en haut ("upper country").
What is the Great lake region called?
A portion of the region also encompasses the Great Lakes Megalopolis. The states and provinces shown in red all have shorelines on at least one of the Great Lakes....Economy.Great Lakes region State or Province2008 GDP millions of USD%Wisconsin240,4295.3TOTAL4,528,128100.008 more rows
What was the first settlement in Michigan?
Sault Ste. MarieFather Jacques Marquette founded the first permanent settlement in Michigan at Sault Ste. Marie in 1668 and, in 1671, founded St. Ignace. That same year, a military post was established at St.
Why are the Great Lakes called the Great Lakes?
From the Ojibwe word mishi-gami "great water" or "large lake". From the Wyandot word ontarí'io "lake of shining waters". English translation of the French term lac supérieur "upper lake", referring to its position north of Lake Huron.
Who was the first European to discover the Great Lakes?
Joseph Le Caron, the Franciscan friar, who first discovered Lake Huron, reached Quebec in May, 1615, with three other Franciscans. To Le Caron was assigned the district of the Hurons as his mission field....Title Page9Under English Rule10Beginnings of Lake Commerce11War of 181212War of 1812, Continued40 more rows
What is the history of the Great Lakes?
The glaciers reached their southernmost limits about half a million years ago. The Wisconsin glaciation occurred about 200,000 years ago and, in its final retreat, some 35,000 years ago, the Great Lakes began to be established.
What immigrants settled in Michigan?
The first permanent European settlement in Michigan was founded in 1668 at Sault Ste. Marie by Jacques Marquette, a French missionary. The French built several trading posts, forts, and villages in Michigan during the late 17th century.
Who owns Great Lakes?
The water in the Great Lakes is owned by the general public according to the Public Trust Doctrine. The Public Trust Doctrine is an international legal theory – it applies in both Canada and the United States, so it applies to the entirety of the Great Lakes.
What are the 5 Great Lakes names?
The Great Lakes are, from west to east: Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario. They are a dominant part of the physical and cultural heritage of North America.
Why is the Great Lakes important?
The Great Lakes are important sources of drinking water, irrigation, transportation, and recreation opportunities such as fishing, hunting, boating, and wildlife watching. The Great Lakes are a critical component of the regional economy on both sides of the border.
What country are the Great Lakes in?
The Great Lakes basin encompasses large parts of two nations, the United States and Canada.
Which Native American culture region was located in the Great Lakes region?
Notable tribes around the Great Lakes included people we now call the Chippewa, Fox, Huron, Iroquois, Ottawa, Potawatomi and Sioux. Approximately 120 bands of Native Peoples have occupied the Great Lakes basin over the course of history.
What country controls more of the Great Lakes?
Four of the Great Lakes—Erie, Huron, Ontario and Superior—are split between the U.S. and Canada. (Lake Michigan is entirely in the U.S.) Until 2017, American boaters did indeed need to be concerned about venturing into foreign waters and getting into trouble with customs authorities.
Who found the Great Lakes?
While the area had been inhabited for a very long time before European explorers arrived, Étienne Brûlé (circa 1592-1632), an advance man for the French explorer Samuel de Champlain (circa 1567-1635), is generally credited as the first European to discover the Great Lakes.
What were the first Europeans to come to the Great Lakes?
Some the first Europeans to come to the Great Lakes region were Christian missionaries. One of the most active groups was the Society of Jesus, or the Jesuits, a Roman Catholic religious order that first started to preach among the Iroquoian-speaking Hurons of Lake Huron in 1625. By 1665, they had established missions at Chequamegon Bay in Lake Superior and at Green Bay in 1669. While the Jesuits enjoyed some successes, they required rigid standards for potential converts and thus did not convert large numbers of Indians to Christianity. Whatever progress they made was lost after 1728 when they abandoned their mission stations in Wisconsin because of the Fox Wars, during which the Fox Indians rose up against French authority. The Fox Wars ended in the 1730s, but the French were unable to send new missionaries to Wisconsin afterward. The next Christian missionaries did not arrive until the 1820s, and they represented both the Catholic Church and various Protestant denominations.
When did Europeans first contact the Great Lakes?
The first recorded contact between Europeans and the Great Lakes Indians occurred between 1534 and 1542, when Jacques Cartier of France explored the St. Lawrence River. His failure to find gold or silver reduced French interest in North America but, despite this, Samuel de Champlain established the city of Quebec and along with it the colony of New France in 1608. The French quickly developed a military and economic alliance with neighboring Algonkian tribes and the Iroquoian-speaking Huron near Lake Huron. Soon, the Dutch of New Netherland established a rival colony in present-day New York, and developed similar trade networks with the five Iroquois nations (the League of the Iroquois) in upstate New York. Later, when the English conquered New Netherland in 1664 and renamed it New York, the Iroquois transferred their loyalties to the English. In the 1640s, the Iroquois began a series of wars in the Great Lakes region mainly motivated by the rich fur-bearing lands of other Indian groups, completely wiping out some tribes, including the Erie, and scattering others such as the Huron from their original homelands. The wars between the Iroquois League and the French-allied tribes persisted until 1701, although there were long periods of relative peace during that time.
What states were the Great Lakes removed from?
Following Indian land sales, the United States pursued a policy called Indian removal whereby Great Lakes tribes were to be removed west across the Mississippi. Other Great Lakes tribes in southern Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois were forced to leave their homes in the Midwest for new lands in Kansas and Oklahoma. In Wisconsin, however, the United States failed to completely remove any of the tribes. Most of the Potawatomi, Ojibwe, and Ottawa who lived in southern Wisconsin were removed to Kansas in the 1830s, but some Potawatomi refused to go and instead moved to northern Wisconsin. About half of the Ho-Chunk removed to Iowa, and were later moved to Minnesota, South Dakota, and finally Nebraska. The other half of the tribe refused to move out of Wisconsin. The federal government attempted to remove the remaining Wisconsin Ho-Chunk to Nebraska in 1873 and 1874, but most returned to Wisconsin within a year. The Menominee and the Ojibwe also refused to leave, and in 1854 they received reservation lands so they could stay in Wisconsin.
What tribes moved to Wisconsin in the 1600s?
These wars radically changed the human landscape of the Great Lakes region. Tribes in Michigan's southern peninsula -- the Potawatomi, Ojibwe, Sauk, Fox, and Ottawa -- were pushed farther west into Wisconsin during the 1600s. Some tribes that moved into Wisconsin because of the Iroquois wars, including the Huron, Miami, Sauk, Fox, Mascouten, and Kickapoo, left Wisconsin during the 1700s for new lands west of the Mississippi or other parts of the Midwest. Some refugees of the Iroquois wars, namely the Potawatomi and Ojibwe, stayed in Wisconsin.
What are the tribes that live in the Great Lakes?
Most Indian groups living in the Great Lakes region for the last five centuries are of the Algonkian language family. This includes such present-day Wisconsin tribes as the Menominee, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi. Some tribes, such as the Stockbridge-Munsee and the Brothertown, are also Algonkian-speaking tribes who relocated from the eastern seaboard to the Great Lakes region in the 19th century. The Oneida who live near Green Bay belong to the Iroquois language group and the Ho-Chunk of Wisconsin are one of the few Great Lakes tribes to speak a Siouan language.
What are the Great Lakes Indians known for?
They comprise a general culture called "Woodland" after its adaptation to North America's northeastern and southeastern woodlands. Woodland Indian societies have depended to a large degree on forest products for their survival, and Great Lakes Indians hunted, fished, gathered wild foods, and practiced agriculture for their subsistence. In many parts of the Great Lakes -- particularly northern Wisconsin -- Indians depended on wild rice as a dietary staple, while Indians in areas without wild rice generally cultivated corn. Where sugar maples grow, Great Lakes Indians established sugar-making camps in early spring and made sugar from tree sap.
How did the United States assimilate Indians?
From about 1850 to 1930, the United States developed an assimilation policy through which Indian people were encouraged or forced to give up their languages, customs, religions, and ways of life. They were forced to live like whites so they could be "civilized" and eventually assimilate or fit into mainstream American society. Many whites did not understand that Indian people already had their own civilizations and cultures that they did not want to give up. The two primary institutions the United States used to implement its assimilation policy were boarding schools and land allotments. Boarding schools were run by the government or by religious groups and focused on teaching Indian boys agriculture and manual trades, while Indian girls were taught domestic skills. The largest and most well-known boarding school was the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania established in 1879. The superintendent of Carlisle and other boarding schools believed it was necessary to separate children from their tribes and families so they could be purged of their "savage" lifestyles. The other tool that white reformers used to assimilate Indians were land allotments, which were mandated by the 1887 Dawes Act. Rather than letting tribes hold their reservation lands communally, lands were divided up and allotted to individuals so they could farm. However, most Indians did not want to farm and often sold their lands, often to non-Indians. By 1920, over 90% of the land on some reservations, such as the Oneida reservation in northeastern Wisconsin, was owned by whites.
When did the Great Lakes form?
Lake Michigan is the largest lake that is entirely within one country. The Great Lakes began to form at the end of the Last Glacial Period around 14,000 years ago , as retreating ice sheets exposed the basins they had carved into the land, which then filled with meltwater.
When did the Great Lakes begin to trade with the Hopewell culture?
The peoples of the Great Lakes traded with the Hopewell culture from around 1000 AD , as copper nuggets have been extracted from the region and fashioned into ornaments and weapons in the mounds of Southern Ohio.
What river runs through Lake Simcoe?
Lake Simcoe, connected to Georgian Bay by the Severn River, serves as part of the Trent–Severn Waterway, a canal route traversing Southern Ontario between Lakes Ontario and Huron. Lake St. Clair, connected with Lake Huron to its north by the St. Clair River and with Lake Erie to its south by the Detroit River.
How many lakes are there in the Great Lakes?
Though the five lakes lie in separate basins, they form a single, naturally interconnected body of fresh water, within the Great Lakes Basin. As a chain of lakes and rivers, they connect the east-central interior of North America to the Atlantic Ocean. From the interior to the outlet at the Saint Lawrence River, water flows from Superior to Huron and Michigan, southward to Erie, and finally northward to Lake Ontario. The lakes drain a large watershed via many rivers and contain approximately 35,000 islands. There are also several thousand smaller lakes, often called "inland lakes", within the basin. The surface area of the five primary lakes combined is roughly equal to the size of the United Kingdom, while the surface area of the entire basin (the lakes and the land they drain) is about the size of the UK and France combined. Lake Michigan is the only one of the Great Lakes that is entirely within the United States; the others form a water boundary between the United States and Canada. The lakes are divided among the jurisdictions of the Canadian province of Ontario and the U.S. states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York. Both the province of Ontario and the state of Michigan include in their boundaries portions of four of the lakes: The province of Ontario does not border Lake Michigan, and the state of Michigan does not border Lake Ontario. New York and Wisconsin's jurisdictions extend into two lakes, and each of the remaining states into one of the lakes.
How does human activity affect lake levels?
At least two human water use activities have been identified as having the potential to affect the lakes' levels: diversion (the transfer of water to other watersheds) and consumption (substantially done today by the use of lake water to power and cool electric generation plants, resulting in evaporation). Outflows through the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal is more than balanced by artificial inflows via the Ogoki River and Long Lake/ Kenogami River diversions. Fluctuation of the water levels in the lakes has been observed since records began in 1918. The water level of Lake Michigan–Huron had remained fairly constant over the 20th century Recent lake levels include record low levels in 2013 in Lakes Superior, Erie, and Michigan-Huron, followed by record high levels in 2020 in the same lakes. The water level in Lake Ontario has remained relatively constant in the same time period, hovering around the historical average level.
How are the Great Lakes connected?
The Great Lakes are connected by the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal to the Gulf of Mexico by way of the Illinois River (from the Chicago River) and the Mississippi River. An alternate track is via the Illinois River (from Chicago), to the Mississippi, up the Ohio, and then through the Tennessee–Tombigbee Waterway (a combination of a series of rivers and lakes and canals), to Mobile Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. Commercial tug -and- barge traffic on these waterways is heavy.
What are the Great Lakes?
The surrounding region is called the Great Lakes region, which includes the Great Lakes Megalopolis.
Where did the Great Lakes engagement take place?
The most famous Great Lakes engagement, however, took place on neighboring Lake Erie, near the island of Put-In-Bay, Ohio. On September 10 th, 1813, American captain Oliver Hazard Perry successfully challenged his British opponent into open battle where Chauncey avoided ...
What war was the Great Lakes in?
The Great Lakes in the War of 1812. At the start of the War of 1812, the United States Navy found itself completely outmatched by the many times larger Royal Navy on the open ocean, with the exception of a half-dozen heavy frigates like the USS Constitution. With the Invasion of Canada, the United States opened an entirely new naval theater ...
Why are the Great Lakes important?
Even more important, for a military context at least, the lakes provide the most convenient supply route between America and Canada.
What were the major cities that were affected by demilitarization?
With demilitarization, came increased settlement, development and finally, industrialization as settlements like Cleveland, Buffalo, Chicago, and Detroit experienced great amounts of development and industrialization. The Great Lakes region was now no longer the frontier.
Which lake is located on the Northwest Frontier?
Lying along the border between the independent United States and the British-controlled Canadian provinces, the Great Lakes were perhaps the most remarkable geographic feature of the Northwest Frontier. Lake Superior, the westernmost of the five, is the largest freshwater body by surface area on the globe, but even the smaller ones are large enough ...
Who was the victor of Lake Erie?
Oliver Perry, the victor at Lake Erie, came from a distinguished family of naval officers. His father Christopher served in the Continental Navy during the American Revolution and his younger brother, Matthew, fought in the Mexican War and later led the way in opening Tokugawa Japan to the wider world. Library of Congress.
Which treaty established a relationship between the United States and Great Britain?
The 1871 Treaty of Washington followed up on this progress, completely demilitarizing the region, and establishing almost a century and a half of friendly relations between the United States, Great Britain, and the newly independent Canada.
Where was the colony of New York founded?
Colony begun at the site of Albany, New York
Why did the first winter of the colony lose 50 settlers?
Colony that lost over 50 settlers the first winter because of gold hunting rather than crop planting
Where did the Great Lakes come from?
Great Lakes Come From Great Glaciers. The icy and cold rocky shore of Lake Erie In Northwest Ohio. Image credit: Michael Shake/Shutterstock.com. The formation and location of the Great Lakes is a direct result of ancient glaciation and geology, yet the precise age of the lakes is not known. Scientists estimate that they are anywhere between 7,000 ...
How long have the Great Lakes been around?
It is estimated that they formed anywhere within the last 7,000 to 32,000 years.
How long has glaciation been around?
Although glaciation occurred numerous times during the Earth’s history, it is only the process that took place in the last two to three million years that scientists are the most certain about. During that time, nearly 30% of the Earth was beneath glaciers, during what is referred to as the Pleistocene Ice age.
What is the name of the lake that was formed by buckles and junctures?
The largest, Lake Superior , was shaped by buckles and junctures in its precambrian geology, while the deep trough of the Appalachian geosyncline not only gave Lake Erie its shape but also the vast drop-off and resulting torrent of water known as Niagara Falls.
How many unique shapes are there in the Great Lakes?
One of the most recognizable features on a modern map of North America are the five unique shapes of the Great Lakes. While the movement of glacial ice caused the lakes to form, it is the geology beneath them that gives each its unique shape.
What are the Great Lakes?
The Great Lakes are the source of food, transportation, and drinking water for millions living in Canada and the United States. The chain of five deep, freshwater bodies known as the Great Lakes make up 20% of the world’s surface water supply. In fact, the Great Lakes are so large they are often referred to as inland seas.
Where did the ice age glaciers form?
These massive ice sheets formed in mountainous regions along the northern latitudes, and expanded down across continents digging out deep valleys and slopes. These ice age glaciers were so large that approximately 97% of Canada, the second largest country in the world, was covered in thick ice.
How many states share the Great Lakes?
Eight states share the Great Lakes, and thus state sovereignty andinterstate governance have been central in shaping modern GreatLakes law and policy. The story of the Great Lakes states begins withthe Northwest Ordinance of 1787, one of the most important achieve-ments of the United States Continental Congress.108 The Ordinancecreated the procedure by which states in what would eventually be-come the Midwest would be admitted to the Union.109 The drafters ofthe Ordinance and the iterations that preceded it were very concernedwith how to equitably integrate new states into the United States andbind those newly admitted states to the existing ones.110 Ultimately,the Northwest Ordinance provided the procedure by which thirty-oneof the fifty states entered the Union. It prohibited slavery in thosestates, and established the equal-footing doctrine, which will be dis-cussed in great detail below.111In 1784, Thomas Jefferson chaired a committee that made the firstattempt to devise a method to accomplish this integration.112 Jeffer-son’s Plan for Government of the Western Territory established a
Where did the public trust originate?
The concept of the public trust is ancient and dates back to the timeof Justinian and the Roman Empire, but its American applicationstems from more recent English common law roots.291 The NorthwestOrdinance of 1787 established the public trust doctrine in the GreatLakes and connecting waters.292 It provided that
How many lakes are there in the world?
The Great Lakes are vast. The five lakes that make up the sys-tem—Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario—comprise thelargest freshwater system on Earth and contain approximately one-fifth of the world’s water supply.1 The Great Lakes provide water forconsumption, highways for trade and transportation, fuel for power,and natural beauty for recreation.2 Approximately 35 million peoplelive within the Great Lakes Basin, and 23 million depend on the Lakesfor their drinking water.3 The Lakes are more than 750 miles wideand have a surface area greater than 300,000 square miles; there are25,000 square miles of connected smaller lakes, hundreds of miles ofnavigable rivers, and 10,000 miles of shoreline.4 Simply put, the GreatLakes are enormous in their physical size and quantity of water.The enormity of the Great Lakes is matched by a governance andlegal regime that can overwhelm attorneys and policymakers. Thesystem is shared and governed by two countries, eight states,5 twoprovinces, and numerous Indian tribes and First Nations, in additionto a multitude of American, Canadian, and international agencies, aswell as thousands of local governments.6 This “patchwork” of Great
Overview
Geography
Though the five lakes lie in separate basins, they form a single, naturally interconnected body of fresh water, within the Great Lakes Basin. As a chain of lakes and rivers, they connect the east-central interior of North America to the Atlantic Ocean. From the interior to the outlet at the Saint Lawrence River, water flows from Superior to Huron and Michigan, southward to Erie, and finally nort…
Etymology
Lake Erie From the Erie tribe, a shortened form of the Iroquoian word erielhonan 'long tail'. Lake Huron Named for the inhabitants of the area, the Wyandot (or "Hurons"), by the first French explorers . The Wyandot originally referred to the lake by the name karegnondicode: wya is deprecated , a word which has been variously translated as "Freshwater Sea", "Lake of the Hurons", or simply "lake". …
Statistics
The Great Lakes contain 21% of the world's surface fresh water: 5,472 cubic miles (22,810 km ), or 6.0×10 U.S. gallons, that is 6 quadrillion U.S gallons, (2.3×10 liters). The lakes contain about 84% of the surface freshwater of North America; if the water were evenly distributed over the entire continent's land area, it would reach a depth of 5 feet (1.5 meters). This is enough water to cover the 48 contiguous U.S. states to a uniform depth of 9.5 feet (2.9 m). Although the lakes contain …
Geology
It has been estimated that the foundational geology that created the conditions shaping the present day upper Great Lakes was laid from 1.1 to 1.2 billion years ago, when two previously fused tectonic plates split apart and created the Midcontinent Rift, which crossed the Great Lakes Tectonic Zone. A valley was formed providing a basin that eventually became modern day Lake Superior. …
Climate
The Great Lakes have a humid continental climate, Köppen climate classification Dfa (in southern areas) and Dfb (in northern parts) with varying influences from air masses from other regions including dry, cold Arctic systems, mild Pacific air masses from the west, and warm, wet tropical systems from the south and the Gulf of Mexico. The lakes have a moderating effect on the climate; they can al…
Ecology
Historically, the Great Lakes, in addition to their lake ecology, were surrounded by various forest ecoregions (except in a relatively small area of southeast Lake Michigan where savanna or prairie occasionally intruded). Logging, urbanization, and agriculture uses have changed that relationship. In the early 21st century, Lake Superior's shores are 91% forested, Lake Huron 68%, Lake Ontario 49%, L…
History
Several Native American populations (Paleo-indians) inhabited the region around 10,000 BC, after the end of the Wisconsin glaciation. The peoples of the Great Lakes traded with the Hopewell culture from around 1000 AD, as copper nuggets have been extracted from the region and fashioned into ornaments and weapons in the mounds of Southern Ohio.