Great Lakes

“ There is a quiet horror about the Great Lakes which grows as one revisits them. Fresh water has no right or call to dip over the horizon, pulling down and pushing up the hulls of big steamers; no right to tread the slow, deep-sea dance-step between wrinkled cliffs; nor to roar in on weed and sand beaches between vast headlands that run out for leagues into haze and sea-fog. Lake Superior is all the same stuff as what towns pay taxes for, but it engulfs and wrecks and drives ashore, like a fully accredited ocean—a hideous thing to find in the heart of a continent. ”

“ In a hundred other ways that I might describe does one see life on a Great Lakes freighter as on none of the vessels of the salt seas. It is a life distinct from all others, a life that is building a people within itself—the people of the Lake breed. ”

“ It is when this confidence and friendship155 is won that you begin to reap the full pleasure of a trip on a Great Lakes freighter; it is then that the romance, the picturesqueness, and the superstition of the Lake breed creep out. Not until that time, for instance, will you discover that these rough strong men of the Lakes are the most indomitable home-owners in the world. A home is their ambition, the goal toward which they constantly work. From the deckhand to the young, unmarried mate it is the reward of all their labour, the end for which they are all striving. ”

“ The Great Lakes on the northern border of the United States are the largest bodies of fresh water on the globe. They carry an enormous commerce, nearly a hundred thousand men being employed by the fleet of lake vessels, which approximates two millions tonnage. At the head of Lake Erie the waters of Detroit River pour in, draining the upper lakes, this stream, about twenty-five miles long, flowing from Lake St. Clair and broadening from a half-mile to four miles width at its mouth. ”

“ There are rivers whose currents, running red with the silt and mud of their soft alluvial shores, carry far into the ocean the record of their muddy progress; but this glorious river system, through its many lakes and various names, is ever the same crystal current, flowing pure from the fountain-head of Lake Superior. Great cities stud its shores; but they are powerless to dim the transparency of its waters. Steam-ships cover the broad bosom of its lakes and estuaries; but they change not the beauty of the water, no more than the fleets of the world mark the waves of the ocean. ”

“ To find just why they are made, one must go among the powerful men of the Lakes, among the iron barons of the North and the coal barons of the South and East—must, in short, become acquainted with the entire commercial and industrial mechanism which115 exists on the Great Lakes to-day. They are not predictions that can be arrived at from New York, or San Francisco, or London, or Liverpool. One must talk with the men who make them, must live among those commercial and industrial conditions for a long time, and must know at first hand the two cities we speak of—Buffalo and Duluth. ”

“ For some unaccountable reason, the Great Lakes, notwithstanding the fact that more than thirty million people live in the States bordering their shores, and in spite of the still more remarkable fact that they are doing more than anything else on the American continent for the commercial progress of the nation, have been almost entirely neglected by writers. ”

“ The climate mild and healthful, the country ascertained to be the best of land—with streams and rivers sufficient for all useful purposes—and the upland level, between the two great lakes, chequered with innumerable small lakes, or basins, of one, three, five, and ten miles in circumference, pure and clear as the fountains of Eden, and abounding with fish, as do the rivers. ”

“ The Great Lakes possess every essential characteristic of seas. They are of large extent in length and breadth; they are navigable the whole distance, in either direction, by the largest vessels known to commerce; objects are not distinguishable from the opposite shores; they separate, in many instances, states, and in some instances constitute the boundary between independent nations; and their waters, after passing long distances, debouch into the ocean. The fact that their waters are fresh, and, not subject to the tides, does not affect their essential character as seas. ”

“ In this way, so far as science can tell, the Great Lakes of to-day were brought into existence. How early human life existed along their shores it is impossible even to guess, but that the earliest life of the continent should first of all gather in the valleys of the vast water system that gave them birth, and afterward reassemble along their shores, is highly probable. The earliest discoverers to penetrate into the wildernesses of the West found these shores inhabited by powerful nations. Other nations were facing extermination. ”

“ And so it goes, from end to end of the Lakes, every mile fraught with interest, every hour offering the traveller something new of scenery or history. At no time is there the monotonous sameness of ocean travel, and even night is to be regretted because of the things which are passed then and cannot be seen. And this life of the Lakes is not, like that of the salt seas, open only to those of means. ”

“ We are, however, by no means dependent upon lands along sea shores for evidences of slow rising and sinking of land. Thus, by careful measurements it has been shown that the general region of the Great Lakes is now differentially rising toward the northeast at the rate of about five inches per 100 miles per century. ”

“ The general reader will enjoy the romance attaching to the past history of the Lakes and not less the romance of the present—the story of the great commercial fleets that plough our inland seas, created to transport the fruits of the earth and the metals that are dug from the bowels of the earth. To the business man who has interests in or about the Lakes, or to the prospective investor in Great Lakes enterprises, the book will be found suggestive. ”

“ Whether the Great Lakes are the true reservoirs from which our Northern wells, springs, and subterranean streams receive their constant supply of water, is a question of sufficient interest and significance to merit a thoughtful consideration. ”

“ The people of three States out of four73 are better acquainted with steamship fares to London and Liverpool than to Duluth or Chicago; they have been taught to look to the oceans and ocean resorts, and to-day the five Great Lakes of America are more foreign, so far as knowledge of them is concerned, than either the Atlantic or the Pacific. ”

“ The Great Lakes are peculiar in receiving the drainage of but a small peripheral land area, enclosed by an ill-defined water-parting from the rivers that run to Hudson Bay or the Gulf of St Lawrence on the north and to the Gulf of Mexico on the south. ”

“ Rivers enter the lakes from the south and west with sluggish currents and deep channels resembling the estuaries of drowned rivers; while those that enter from opposite directions are swift and shallow. At the western end of Lake Erie are found submerged caves containing stalactites, and old meadows and forest grounds are now under water. It is thus seen that the water of the lakes is rising along their southwestern shores, while from their north-eastern shores it is being withdrawn. The region of the Great Lakes is therefore warping ”

“ The common processes of nature maintain the everlasting and perfect purity of these waters, independent of the care of man. The transparency of the waters, in those upper regions, and in the great lakes, is a marvel—an incredible wonder to those, who have been accustomed only to turbid lakes and turbid rivers. ”

“ In many of these ancient lake-basins the draining is not yet completed, the lowest parts being still marshes or ponds of water. The Mohawk and the Connecticut flow each through a bead-roll of small lake-basins, walled around by solid rock. Through their margins the rivers for untold ages have been deepening their channels until the lake-bottoms have become dry land, and the homes of men. The Great Lakes themselves have, from a like cause, been much reduced from their former dimensions. ”

“ During the eight months of Lake navigation they can transport as much freight over the “thousand-mile highway” as the combined fleets of all nations take through the Suez Canal in twelve! Yet who has heard of Coulby? How many know of the gigantic fleet he controls? A few thousand Lake people, and that is all. A magnificent illustration is this of the national ignorance concerning the Great Lakes.
A Monster of Steel and Iron Ready to be Launched.
Weight 9,500,000 lbs.
And Coulby is only one of many. The fleet he controls is only one of many. ”

“ Not seeing any signs of game, however, they steered out so as to clear the various little capes or woody points of land inclosing the numerous coves scattered along the indented shore, and struck a line for the great inlet at the head of the lake, which they now soon reached, and commenced rowing against the at first gentle and then rapid current, which here pours down from, the upper lakes, through the rocky and picturesque defiles, in the form of a magnificent river, rivalling in its size the midway portions of the Connecticut or Hudson. ”

“ They are valuable sources of water supply, and when they disappear their beds furnish a black muck soil with a shell marl subsoil which is excellent for garden culture. Other lakes owe their origin to the erosion of limestone forming caves and sink holes, or to the sand bars built across the mouths of bays or rivers by the Great Lakes at the present or at a higher stage of elevation. ”

“ The development of the land behind Lake Superior was particularly spectacular and important, not only because of its general effect on the industrial world but also because out of it came the St. Mary's River Ship Canal. Nowhere in the zone of the Great Lakes has any region produced such unexpected changes in American industrial and commercial life as did the region of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota contributory to Lake Superior. ”

“ There are probably several million people in this country of ours who are, just at the present moment, of the above opinion. They have never looked into what I might call the “economy of the Lakes.” A few words will show what part the Lakes have played in the building of millions of American homes. At this writing it cost $2.50 to bring a thousand feet of lumber from Duluth to Detroit aboard a ship. It costs $5.50 to bring that same lumber by rail! ”

“ There are numerous harbors along the coast line of the lakes. Many of these havens are shallow, and constant dredging is required to keep them accessible. The National Government has expended large sums on harbor improvements. ”

“ We have a lake—Cold Lake—scarcely noticed on the map, yet I have seen forty teams a day drawing the white fish from that lake for the American market. When the great lakes, such as the Great Slave and the Lesser Slave, are opened up, they will yield inexhaustible supplies of fish, of enormous value. ”

“ Spaulding Lake at the head of the Great Gulf, Mounts Adams and Madison in the distance
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"The wind that beats the mountain blows more gently round the open wold" in which lie the two little Lakes of the Clouds. Into their tiny hollows the August sunshine wells and seems to tip with gold the plumes of the spinulose wood ferns which grow in the tundra moss and snuggle up against the mica-schist ledges that make miniature cliffs along the shores. ”

“ A [Pg 2] double range of mountains extends through the United States, in a direction, from south-west to north-east; and another range traverses nearly the whole western regions, from north to south. No part of the world is so well watered with rivulets, rivers, and lakes, as this. Some of the lakes resemble inland seas. Lake Superior is nearly 300 miles long, and is more than 150 miles wide; and lakes Huron, Michigan, Erie, Ontario, and Champlain, are all of great size. The principal navigable rivers of America are the Mississippi, the Ohio, the Missouri, and the Illinois. ”

“ They comprise the Atlantic, Gulf (including the Missouri-Mississippi system also) , Great Basin, Lake and Pacific river-systems. (See articles on each topic) . They give the country 100,000 miles of inland navigation — the most extensive in the world. Among the minor lakes, in distinction from the Great Lakes, may be mentioned Champlain, Moosehead, Oneida and its famous sister-lakes in New York, Salt Lake and Tahoe. (See these titles) .
Natural Features. No country equals the United States in beauty, grandeur and variety of scenery. ”

“ Five years after167 Brule’s discovery, another adventurer, Jean Nicolet, paddled in a birch canoe from Georgian Bay across Lake Huron and through the Straits of Mackinaw, and thus discovered Lake Michigan. As surprising as it may seem, Erie was the last of the Great Lakes to be found by white men, and although its existence was known to the French as early as 1640, it was not until 1669 that Joliet, its discoverer, made his voyage upon it. ”

“ The more one comes in touch and sympathy with the lives of these men of the Lakes the more one’s interest increases; and it is not until one eats and drinks with them aft, and secures their confidence and friendship, that he is let into the secrets of the inner and home life of these red-blooded people, which is unlike the life of any other seafaring men in the world. ”