Great Lakes Facts and History - Lake Superior Trivia

Lake Superior has not only been made legendary in song but is one of the most traveled shorelines of the Great Lakes. With its size and surrounding beauty including many state parks, it has become a favorite tourist destination. Below are just a few pieces of Lake Superior trivia.

• The lake is approximately 10,000 years old and was born from the last retreating glaciers.
• By surface area, Lake Superior is the world’s largest freshwater lake.
• It contains about 10% of the earth’s freshwater.
• It contains more water than all the other Great Lakes combined.
• Superior produces the world’s greatest lake effect snows.
• The lake rarely freezes over completely with an average annual temperature of 40 degrees Fahrenheit.

The Huron, Iroquois, Cree, Dakota, and Ojibwe were just some of the early Native American tribes in the area.

The French and British were among the early white settlers.

During the War of 1812, the British hid a warship in the bays of Isle Royale, which is in the northwest waters of Lake Superior.

The Jesuit missionaries are credited with creating the first maps of the area and calling the lake "Superieur."

Canadian singer/songwriter Gordon Lightfoot in his song The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald helped to make the ship’s sinking one of the most well-known pieces of Great Lakes history.

The Fitz, as it is often called, was a freighter that went down in a storm in Lake Superior on November 10, 1975. Twenty-nine men lost their lives on that fateful day. Lightfoot immortalized the power of Superior with these words:

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down

of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee

Superior they said never gives up her dead

when the gales of November come early.

The words Gitche Gumee in the song refer to the Ojibwe word "Gitchigami" which roughly translated means big water.  Learn more in my article about the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

• After European settlers came, the fur trade was the first large-scale commerce to take hold in the area with mining (especially of copper) and logging to follow later.
• The first of the current US Soo Locks were completed in 1855 and allow ships to pass between Lake Superior and the lower lakes.
• The 1920s saw the end of the logging and sturgeon fishing booms.

Lake Superior and the surrounding areas are not the natural resource giants they once were – some would say thankfully so.  Conservation efforts have restored much of the beauty of the region and tourism is what keeps the wheels of commerce moving.

References:

• Linder, Douglas O. Superior. 2006. May 2009.
• USACE. Detroit District. Soo Locks – Sault Saint Marie, History. April 26, 2005. May 2009.