Chapter 57

The reason for the inaccurate charts of the waters of the Great Lakes has a great deal to do with politics and very little to do with ineptness. Great Lakes shipping didn't have much impact on international commerce or money in the pockets of people on the coast.

For years, if an inland waterway shipper need to take a load from Leamington, on western Lake Erie, to Montreal, they hired or built a boat to take their goods via Lake Erie to the Niagara River, unload the cargo, transport it overland to Lake Ontario, load it on another indigenous shipper to take the load to the St. Lawrence river, and either pay to have the cargo hauled by land to Montreal or send it by bateau down the St. Lawrence to Montreal.

It's not that boats didn't chance the big river ... they did, but many boats and cargoes were lost because the St. Lawrence is shallow in spots and river shallows have a tendency to move around a lot.

From the source, Lake Ontario, 246 feet above sea level, the St. Lawrence wends it's way 186 miles to Montreal, 20 feet above sea level. The river drops 226 feet in 186 miles ... about one foot 2 and a half inches per mile ... on average. That's not to say there aren't placid areas where the deep places are smooth and slow ... but those areas make the drops longer and steeper.

The Lakes vary in depth as much as 20 feet on a continuous 26 to 39 year cycle. The extra water goes on top ... some people ask why the bottom doesn't get deeper? The bottom stays where it's at ... the extra water goes on top. Well, except for glacial isostatic readjustment. That's so slow we really don't have a way to measure it. Trust me on this.

OkOkOk ... the weight of glacial ice pressing down on the earth's crust bent it ... the crust. The earth likes round better than holes so the magma is doing its best to push the mantle which pushes the crust up trying to get those horrible age wrinkles out ... close enough.

The Lakes are newish geologically speaking. 9000 years old ... not much ... say ... the beginning of the holocene.

When Europeans first started to explore the Western Hemisphere, rivers gave access to vast lands without having to slog it by foot. The explorers stayed out in the middle of big rivers so the men who were here first couldn't shoot arrows far enough to hurt the explorers. Stay in the middle, live. Stay close to shore, die. Live ... die ... live ... die. Live! The shores of the rivers didn't get mapped because dying is pretty damn stupid.

After exploration comes exploitation and after exploitation comes colonization. With colonies comes transportation. The shallow water in the lakes didn't get mapped much until there was commerce. The east coast people had access to everything that the inland people could possibly provide so let the inland folks fend for themselves.

There were a couple three or four wars and the Lakes became a waterway for troops to attack the rear of the defenders.

Ships started going missing and nobody knew why until some soaking wet half drowned seaman said, "There's a big fucking rock out there," and someone said where? He took a guess and put a wet finger on a chart and the big fucking rock was added to the book of knowledge of the Lakes. His finger might have missed the rock by miles but people who go down to the sea in ships know that and avoided that general area like mad. It still fascinates me how many reefs, rocks and shoals were marked because there was a mast sticking up out of the water next to it.

Great Lakes Salted fish became popular with the immigrants so there was a market and where there is a market men seek their fortunes. The lakes fishing industry blossomed and so did the businesses of people who know how to build boats. And because boats sink there was a continued demand for builders whose boats didn't ... sink.

The boats that float still sink for many reasons; navigational difficulties, inclement weather, poor or inaccurate charts, dense fog, smoke from forest fires, and rocks and shoals ... and wrecks. Striking a sunken boat that wasn't there the last time you were accounted for other wrecks. 'Washed ashore next to the Betty Ann and went to pieces in the storm.'

Grace and I were, surveying, in our own little way, the shallows. The 35 foot mark is the least water the 'Bulker' of the day, 1955, could safely pass and the hundred foot line is where everybody is same. In two years there would be a tragedy that made the government realize that money needed to be spent because of National interests.

We assumed we were doing initial exploration on the cheap.

In ten years the government would be examining the Lake beds much more closely. In 20 years there would be satellites that would be collating charts of amazing accuracy and building weather information forecasting from looking out the window to see what was happening to only being wrong in predictions four out of five days.

When the USGS boss said we would 'just love' Lake Huron, his sarcasm shown though. He was right.

Man has drawn a line through the middle of Lake Huron. East of the line is Canada, west is us ... US us. Although the deciders of "the line' didn't know it at the time, Canada got the deep water and we got the shallows and the border-line accidentally closely follows that.

Halfway to Canada and all the way at the south end of the lake, Huron is a hundred and thirty feet deep at the deepest and it collects ships like a spoiled child collects his siblings toys In storms, the deep, Canadian side of Huron, gathers the waters in huge waves that crash on the shallow side and cause huge ships to bottom out ... strike the bottom of the lake and bash glaring big holes in iron hulls and break long hulls in half. Storms on Lake Huron are NO fun.

Chemistry is in action on the Lakes too. Rogers City has one of the largest limestone quarries in the world ... limestone is the product of shallow seas and saltwater. The chemical reaction of limestone, evaporite, fresh water and dolomite cause little spikes to grow in the shallow waters wherever that particular combination happens to be. 9,500 years ago the shallow parts of what would be Lake Huron were covered with land and ice. Nine thousand years ago the land and ice were gone and the chemical process began. All those spikes started then.