The Great Lakes, the world's biggest series of freshwater lakes, are enthralling: created 14,000 years ago by melting ice sheets, they comprise 84 percent of North America's surface fresh water and are significant geologically, hydrologically, biologically, and historically.
Aside from academic problems, the lakes are also the subject of some amazing legends, many of which have never been fully explained. Look no further than our own mysterious Great Lakes for some frightening stories to tell around the campfire this season.
I tried to limit myself to just the Top 10, but there were so many terrifying facts about this magnificent body of water that I ended up listing 20. Because they are all so fascinating, these facts are presented in no particular order. We'll leave it up to you to decide which is the best!
1. There are at least 6,000 shipwrecks on the Great Lakes, with some estimates reaching as high as 20,000. The Great Lakes have been the final resting place for hundreds of ships due to abrupt weather changes. The Great Lakes "have more shipwrecks per surface square mile than any other body of water in the world," according to Chris Gillcrist, executive director of the National Museum of the Great Lakes.
2. Because of the shape of Lake Michigan, violent currents can emerge quickly, posing a danger to those who live nearby. Lake Michigan is considered the most dangerous of the Great Lakes due to its longshore and rip currents.
3. In still-growing stockpiles, more than 60,000 tons of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel are stored on the shores of four of the five Great Lakes — in some cases, just yards from the waterline.
4. Hurricanes require a large amount of heat flux to help them transfer energy from the water to themselves, and the Great Lakes are normally too cold for this to happen. In September 1996, however, a combination of unusually warm lake water and an unusually cold mid-latitude cyclone produced the "Huroncane," or "Hurricane Huron," a storm system that in many ways resembled typical hurricanes.
5. Strange things to happen to your boat or plane don't have to happen in Bermuda; it appears that Lake Michigan has it covered. The Lake Michigan Triangle, which extends from Ludington through Benton Harbor, Michigan, and Manitowoc, Wisconsin, has been linked to the disappearances of ships, people, and planes since 1891, when a schooner named the Thomas Hume and its crew vanished without a trace. George Donner, the captain of the O.M. McFarland, retired to his cabin after a long night piloting the ship through frigid water in 1937 and was never seen again. Finally, Northwestern Airlines Flight 2501 vanished on its way to Minneapolis after altering its path to fly over Lake Michigan. The Coast Guard conducted extensive searches and discovered only a blanket from the flight.
6. According to the Shark Research Institute, a shark attack occurred in Chicago in 1955, when George Lawson was bitten by a bull shark while swimming in Lake Michigan. Though the account seemed improbable, experts claim that a bull shark wandering this far from the water is not unheard of.
7. Sea lampreys made their way into the Great Lakes via shipping canals in the early twentieth century. Lampreys spend part of their life in saline water in their natural habitat, but they have adapted to living exclusively in fresh water in the Great Lakes. They spawn as adults in rivers and streams.
8. Pet owners who no longer wished to keep the enormous South American tropical fish in aquariums possibly dropped them illegally in the Great Lakes. Three big vegetarian piranhas with human-like fangs have been discovered in Michigan, raising fears that tropical and invasive fish are penetrating the Great Lakes region.
9. Mishibijiw (Anglicized as Mishipeshu) is an Ojibwa figure of a dangerous water-dwelling creature with the body of a horned lynx with scales and webbed paws, also known as the Dragon of Lake Superior. Mishibijiw is shown as a fierce water spirit with horns and spines on its back at the Agawa pictograph site in Lake Superior Provincial Park. Early French and English explorers reported sighting a water creature that looked like a big lizard in Lake Superior, although Mishibijiw is most commonly referred to as a shape shifter or a water cat in First Nations traditions.
10. Lake Michigan has been known to produce intense and powerful tornadoes on occasion. The Saugatuck Lighthouse in Grand Rapids, Michigan, was destroyed by a tornado in 1956.
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