Great Lakes, 2005

The Voyagers

The Voyage

Day One

Pennsylvania

Looking northwest from the Wisconsin Terminal Moraine (left); Moraine State Park, Butler County, Pennsylvania. From this point onward, we would be traveling across a glaciated landscape. West Liberty Esker (below); Butler County, Pennsylvania.

Thai and Tony check out unsorted glacial cobbles within the West Liberty Esker.

Ohio

The blast furnace row, and ore pit at Mittal Steel in Cleveland, Ohio (above). Geographers suit up for a tour of Mittal Steel with Charlie Glazer (below).

On the shore of our first Great Lake: Erie

Cleveland Lakefront

War Memorial Fountain (1964) showing man escaping from the flames of war and reaching for eternal peace. The fountain is located in the Mall, a grouping of neoclassical civic buildings designed by Daniel Burnham in 1903 as an expression of the City Beautiful Movement in Cleveland (above left). The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and Cleveland Browns Stadium, two anchor attractions on Cleveland's redeveloped, post-industrial lakefront (above right).

Daniel Burnham's 1903 rendition of the Cleveland Mall looking toward Lake Erie, and anchored by the never-to-be-built union railroad station. A "union station" for Cleveland's competing rail lines would be the main infrastructural component for the Terminal Tower complex, completed on the Public Square in 1930.

Cleveland Public Square

BP Tower (1985), Soldier and Sailors Monument (1894), Terminal Tower (1930).

The Key Tower (1991), Ohio's tallest building, rises behind the field trippers departing from the Cleveland lakefront.

Yonder comes the storm; cold front approaches Port Clinton, Ohio (above left). Waiting for the ferry to Put-in-Bay, Ohio (above right).

Lake Erie:

Lake Erie is the 4th largest Great Lake in area, but the shallowest and smallest in volume of water. The lake bottoms out at 210 feet at its deepest point, but its average depth is 62 feet. This is the only Great Lake with a bottom higher than sea level. Although second closest to the sea after Lake Ontario, Lake Erie was the last Great Lake Europeans got to. The French were kept out of this region by the Iroquois who were mortal enemies of the French allied Algonquians, and therefore enemies of the French. Louis Joliet was the first European to document the existence of Lake Erie in 1669, but Etienne Brule may have been on Lake Erie as early as 1615.

On deck and bound across Lake Erie for South Bass Island (above).

First night out; Put-in-Bay, Ohio.

Day Two

Put-in-Bay: We woke up in Put-in-Bay, and explored this raucous summer resort town (famous for superlatives like having the longest bar in the country) in the quiet of the pre-season. Although South Bass Island was used as early as 1811 for the growing of wheat, sheep, and hogs, the island was not surveyed for significant development until its 1854 purchase by Spaniard Joseph de Rivera. De Rivera's investment and promotion turned the town of Put-in-Bay into the main summer resort of the Lake Erie Islands, as well as a production center for Lake Erie wines.

Tagging All 5 Great Lakes

Arguably the greatest challenge of the 16-day adventure was the goal of swimming in all five Great Lakes, despite the fact that it was early May. From the perspective of Great Lakes water temperature, it was one day after the Ice Age.

Ground rules had to be set, which sub-divided the sojourners into three groups: swimmers, waders, and count-me-outers. "Swimming" meant full-body, underwater immersion. "Wading" was walking into the water barefooted to any depth above the ankle. And anything less than ALL five lakes was considered to be the same as NONE of the lakes.

Five attempted Lake Erie, four would succeed in having "swum" in their first Great Lake. A cold front had passed through the night dropping the air temperature into the low 20s (F) with high winds. Water temperature, I'm guessing 32.1 (F).

Swimmers in...and out.

...And the parade of wimpy-ass waders.

Great Lakers after a game of What's-in-the-Park, an examination of place as represented by the monuments and memorials preserved in the shared sacred space of Put-in-Bay's De Rivera Park.

The Perry Monument and the Battle of Lake Erie

The Perry Monument, officially known as the Perry's Victory and International Peace Memorial, is the world's largest doric column, rising 352 feet above South Bass Island at Put-in-Bay. Completed in 1915 to commemorate the 1813 Battle of Lake Erie, the Perry Monument affords a sweeping view of the Lake Erie Islands as well as the entire western Lake Erie basin.

Put-in-Bay from the top of the Perry Monument.

The Battle of Lake Erie determined who was going to control the Great Lakes in the War of 1812. The British had their fleet stationed at Amherstburg, Ontario, while the Americans were building their fleet at Erie, Pennsylvania. Once completed, the 9-boat American squadron came looking for a fight, finding the 6-boat British fleet just north of Put-in-Bay on September 10, 1813. With his flagship, Lawrence destroyed, American Commodore Oliver Perry transferred in the middle of the battle to the Niagara, which led the Americans to victory after the severally damaged H.M.S. Detroit and H.M.S. Queen Charlotte became entangled in each other's rigging. With control over all the lakes above Niagara Falls, the Americans neutralized the threat of a British invasion from Canada. 

Commodore Perry transfers his command from the Lawrence to the Niagara.

The Niagara sails before the entangled H.M.S. Detroit and H.M.S. Queen Charlotte.

Heineman Winery

After his purchase of the Lake Erie Islands, Joseph de Rivera encouraged the growing of vineyards to take advantage of the lake's mild climate. Many of those vineyards are still producing grapes for local wineries like the Heineman Winery, which has been making wine since 1888.

South Bass Island vineyard (above left). On tour at the Heineman Winery (above right). Betsey's purchase (below left). There's only one way to appreciate the subtle differences in wine types: many samples (below right).

Lake Erie Islands Geology

The Lake Erie Islands are underlain by Silurian and Devonian age limestone and dolomite arced up along an anticlinal structure known as the Findlay Arch. Separating the Appalachian and Michigan basins, the Findlay Arch is a northeastward extension of the Cincinnati Arch (structural geology map). The axis of the arch passes to the west of South Bass Island, causing most of the rock beds exposed on the islands to dip eastward. This also means that North, Middle, and South Bass islands are made of older Silurian dolomite, while islands to the east, like Pelee and Kelleys, are made up of younger Devonian limestone. Despite the fact that most of the rock on South Bass Island is dolomite rather than limestone, caves are common. Joints formed during the uplift of the Cincinnati Arch provided natural conduits for rock dissolving carbonic acid to form subterranean cavities that were further enlarged by the rise and fall of Lake Erie's water table and subsequent roof collapse within the caves. Perry's Cave is the island's largest, but Crystal Cave, part of the Heineman Winery, may be the most unique. Gustav Heineman broke into the small cavity while digging a well in 1897, discovering what was in fact an oversized geode. Large, bluish-gray celestine crystals cover the walls and ceiling of the cave, which is now accessed by a steep staircase from the surface. Although some of the celestine was mined as an ingredient used for fireworks, Heineman soon realized he could make more money operating the cave as a tourist attraction.

Dolomite cliffs on South Bass Island (above left), are the source of the smooth, wave-tossed rocks found on the island's pebble beaches (above right).

Into the giant geode that is

 Crystal Cave

Last activity before leaving South Bass Island:

Lake Erie rock chucking contest.

Port Clinton: Wylie the Walleye inspires lunch...

Lakefood on a plate at the Jolly Roger.

Maumee Lake Plain...

     We spent the rest of the day traveling across the Maumee Lake Plain of northwestern Ohio. This flat, poorly drained, but fertile, terrain was once the bottom of an ancient Lake Erie. Just as the Wisconsin glaciers were starting to recede from the Great Lakes, melt water pooled against the ice front, drowning northwestern Ohio and southeastern Michigan beneath glacial Lake Maumee. Lake Maumee drained to the southwest down the Wabash Valley until the glaciers receded far enough north to expose the Grand Outlet across central Michigan, which redirected melt water into Lake Chicago (the future head of Lake Michigan), through the Chicago Outlet, and down the Illinois Valley to the Mississippi River.

     To American settlers, this region of northwestern Ohio was bypassed as the Black Swamp until the 1850s when German farmers began draining the land for agriculture.

Nick, Ted, and Betsey; modern pioneers exploring the Maumee Lake Plain.

Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge

The landscapes in and around the Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge are representative of the Great Black Swamp before and after settlement. The first pioneers would have encountered heavily wooded swamps (below left), which after clearing would leave behind poorly drained soils (below right).

Although poorly drained, the organically-rich soil is productive enough to warrant the laborious digging of drainage ditches, and the tiling of fields (below).

Buried perforated plastic pipes drain the fields to peripheral ditches, which move the water to larger interceptor canals (below) that ultimately drain into Lake Erie or its tributaries.

Oak Openings

     West of the Maumee River, settlers hacking their way through the densely vegetated, and dismally wet Black Swamp were relieved to find "islands" of sand dunes supporting an open forest of oak trees broken by patches of prairie. These "Oak Openings" were ancient barrier islands formed along the western shore of glacial Lake Warren, the name given to an ancient Lake Erie at a time when the receding glaciers allowed the waters of Lake Maumee to join with those of glacial Lake Saginaw in what is now the location of Saginaw Bay. The region was forested after Great Lake levels dropped to present levels, but the sandy soil and old dune formations persist, providing the foundation for an oak-prairie ecotone that does not exist elsewhere on the Lake Maumee Plain.

The Maumee Lake Plain showing the Oak Opening Sand Ridge

Open oak forests, prairie patches, and Ice Age sand dunes...

Michigan

(Lower Peninsula)

Lenawee County

We broke into Michigan as the sun was setting and careened through Lenawee County's portion of the Maumee Lake Plain coming across more drained farmland, center pivot irrigation rigs, evidence of the Great Lakes Fruit Belt in blossoming apple orchards, and the Gerber Hill beach ridge just south of Deerfield. Functioning as a local park (and winter sledding slope), Gerber Hill is at the northern end of the Oak Openings Sand Ridge.

High on the heights of Gerber Hill, the Swiss Alps of Lenawee County.

Lenawee County sunset.

Next...Crazy Detroit Nights!