191–200 of 222 posts
All things considered, there's a sweet spot looming for the Great Lakes. Maybe in 100-125 years. I'm not saying it's a not a wonderful area now, just that it's going to be epic fairly soon. For a while, anyway.
Are we meant to guess what you're hinting about?
No, seas are filled with salt water. I'm sure there are some more technical oceano-/limnogrpahical reasons to distinguish them too. Otherwise, they certainly seem like it especially when you're beyond the sight of land.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess. I don’t miss them and always thought they were cold and smelly and didn’t make for great beaches. The weather around them is awful as well with long, bitter cold winters and summer days that are often extremely humid. You can’t really eat the fish out them either due to high levels of mercury. Additionally the land around the lakes is nice but not spectacular. At least not for North America. If I were to pla…
Chicago local here, and Lake Michigan kitesurfer and surfer. The best swells hit when in the fall and spring, so you better have a good wetsuit. That said, since getting into the sports it makes me love the lake even more. You quickly get over the temp, and just get to enjoying the water. Its also nice to not have to worry about sharks! Some of the best surfing in the area is up in Sheboygan, WI, the Malibu of the Mi…
Seas or not, I love the lakes and the land around them, in the 20+ years since I moved myself here they've taken over my heart. I'm from the aspen parkland of central Alberta; thin trees, dry air, small muddy leach-infested kettle lakes, big skies, poplar and birch land. When I was 8 we did a trip across Canada, and I remember us camping by the shores of Superior when a massive thunderstorm came rolling in, and it le…
I grew up in south west Michigan and absolutely took them for granted. After almost 5 years in Austin we decided to come back to Michigan with the birth of our first child. I missed the lakes terribly, just totally took for granted that not everywhere has fresh water surrounding them on all sides. In this climate change age, being close to so much fresh water really helps calm my nerves knowing that I am in a spot th…
Funny enough though, you sound very similar to my friend who moved back to Michigan from Portland also because of his first child, so who knows? Maybe there's something to Michigan for raising a family
Seas or not, I love the lakes and the land around them, in the 20+ years since I moved myself here they've taken over my heart. I'm from the aspen parkland of central Alberta; thin trees, dry air, small muddy leach-infested kettle lakes, big skies, poplar and birch land. When I was 8 we did a trip across Canada, and I remember us camping by the shores of Superior when a massive thunderstorm came rolling in, and it le…
I guess. I don’t miss them and always thought they were cold and smelly and didn’t make for great beaches. The weather around them is awful as well with long, bitter cold winters and summer days that are often extremely humid. You can’t really eat the fish out them either due to high levels of mercury. Additionally the land around the lakes is nice but not spectacular. At least not for North America. If I were to pla…
The beaches can have algal blooms which make it smelly some days, and of course there's the history of the dead alewives (but that's not really an issue anymore).
Most days the beaches are lovely, the water clear and nice smelling. The farther you get from big cities, the more true that is. I spent a week on North Manitou Island once. It was incredibly beautiful, like if Hawaii was freaking freezing all the time.
The fish near Chicago have some issues, but it's less Mercury and more PCB's and other toxins.
https://dph.illinois.gov/content/dam/soi/en/web/idph/publica...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps the missing component in understanding this is the time frame for draining Huron/Michigan into "River Erie". So Niagara is slowly eroding and will eventually reach a tipping point where further erosion will increase the rate of outflow from Erie. The increased outflow will increase the rate of erosion which will increase the rate of outflow, and so on. Correct? When this is happening, the rate of outflow from…
To be clear, I'm not saying that the draining of Lake Erie necessarily means that Lake Huron/Michigan or Superior would drain too. If that were to happen, the two events would be quite separate and likely separated by millennia. Lake Erie's water level will lower when/if the Niagara river erodes all the way back to to the outlet of Lake Erie, and Lake Erie will become a river, when it erodes all the way to the middle…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And even if you just call them islands, you'll run into ambiguous territory somewhere. Is Manhattan really an island? If so, then is Harlem River really a river? (and there are also islands which become part of the mainland at low tide) BTW, the state of Rhode Island was originally "the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations" which made sense but was unwieldy. Now the actual island of Rhode Island is called…
The trick to avoiding running into ambiguity is to notice the way that fish avoid running into drowning.
Grew up in Michigan and I always describe them to people as "inland oceans." People in the south understand what it means to be 30 miles offshore in the Atlantic or Gulf, and it blows their mind to know that the lakes are so big you can travel far enough out in them to lose sight of land. They're "Great" bodies of water indeed, disrespect them while on their waters at your own peril.
https://seakayaker.org/safety-crossing-lake-michigan/
He also filmed it:
https://www.youtube.com/c/MotoMaximus/videos
(It's not quite as exciting as it sounds, watching the videos)
No, seas are filled with salt water. I'm sure there are some more technical oceano-/limnogrpahical reasons to distinguish them too. Otherwise, they certainly seem like it especially when you're beyond the sight of land.
Steelhead, Salmon, Lampreys, Goby, Sturgeon, Cod (burbot), Drum