#Lake Superior
Judy Penz Sheluk
I’m lucky in that my husband and I own a camp on Lake Superior, near Sault Ste. Marie (pronounced Soo), Ontario. The US (Michigan) side is known as the Upper Peninsula (known as the UP).
Now the downside is it’s a long way from where we live (about 8 hours by car) so it’s not the sort of place you drop by for a weekend. I’ve just come back from 6 weeks there and let me tell you, it’s hard getting back to reality,
In the meantime, here are some facts about Lake Superior you might not know:
1. Lake Superior is the largest of the Great Lakes, shared by Ontario to the north, Minnesota to the west, and Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to the south.
2. The Ojibwe name for the lake is kitchi-gummi or gichi gami, meaning great sea or great water. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote the name as “Gitche Gumee” in The Song of Hiawatha, as did Gordon Lightfoot in his song, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
3. According to the University of Wisconsin, the Objibways believe Lake Superior is protected by Nanabijou, Spirit of the Deep Sea Water.
4. The average depth of Superior is about 500 feet. The deepest point in Lake Superior (about 40 miles north of Munising, Michigan) is 1,300 feet (400 meters) below the surface.
5. Superior holds about 3,000 cubic miles of water— enough to fill all the other Great Lakes plus Lake Erie three times over. Its volume is second only to Russia’s Lake Baikal.
6. The surface area of Lake Superior (31,700 square miles or 82,170 square kilometers) is greater than the combined areas of Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New Hampshire.
7. The Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum approximates 6,000 ships and 30,000 lives lost in Lake Superior shipwrecks. Thanks to Gordon Lightfoot, one of the best known is the Edmund Fitzgerald, which lost her entire crew of 29 men on Lake Superior November 10, 1975, 17 miles north-northwest of Whitefish Point, Michigan.
8. Because of its location north of Lake Huron, which was discovered first by Brûlé, the lake’s name comes from the French word lac supérieur, which means “upper lake.”
9. The lake is about 350 miles (563 km) in length and 160 miles (257 km) in width. If straightened out, the Lake Superior shoreline could connect Duluth and the Bahama Islands.
10. In the summer, the sun sets more than 35 minutes later on the western shore of Lake Superior than at its southeastern edge.
And one final fact: my publishing imprint, Superior Shores Press, will be releasing A Fool’s Journey, book 3 in my Marketville Mystery series on August 21st. Pre-order on Kindle or in trade paperback at your favorite online bookseller.
About the book: In March 2000, twenty-year-old Brandon Colbeck left home to find himself on a self-proclaimed “fool’s journey.” No one—not friends or family—have seen or heard from him since, until a phone call from a man claiming to be Brandon brings the case back to the forefront. Calamity (Callie) Barnstable and her team at Past & Present Investigations have been hired to find out what happened to Brandon and where he might be. As Callie follows a trail of buried secrets and decades-old deceptions only one thing is certain: whatever the outcome, there is no such thing as closure.
“A missing man, a case gone cold, and a trail potholed with lies, A Fool’s Journey is a classic mystery with a twist. It needs a determined detective who won’t give up or give in. Whip-smart and with a heart for adventure, Calamity Barnstable is on the case, and is certainly nobody’s fool.” —Laura Benedict, author of The Stranger Inside