# Are lakes Michigan and Huron one lake or two? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 20, 2017, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-lakes-michigan-and-huron-one-lake-or-two/802148 "2017-11-20T02:01:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2017, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-lakes-michigan-and-huron-one-lake-or-two/802148/21 "2017-11-20T19:57:42Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Where does your forehead start being your scalp? Actually, my forehead has morphed into a fivehead. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2017, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-lakes-michigan-and-huron-one-lake-or-two/802148/22 "2017-11-20T20:03:51Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > No. One rolls and one steams. > > But how in hell does a lake sing? If it has ice water mansions to do it in. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2017, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-lakes-michigan-and-huron-one-lake-or-two/802148/23 "2017-11-20T20:39:08Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Lake St. Clair is also sometimes considered a Great Lake (at least, it was close enough for whoever named the streets in downtown Cleveland), and Georgian Bay is very nearly a lake. Georgian Bay would certainly be considered a separate body of water by a boater, because it’s so geographically different from its parent lake. Georgian Bay and the North Channel are some of the most beautiful cruising areas in the world, and include the spectacular white quartzite mountains of the La Cloche Range. Killarney Provincial Park is there, a protected wilderness area of spectacular beauty that inspired the paintings of the Group of Seven. Whereas Lake Huron, except for its northern shore where it connects with Georgian Bay, is geographically fairly boring. ---
**Author:** ![Folacin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folacin/32/3195_2.png) [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2017, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-lakes-michigan-and-huron-one-lake-or-two/802148/24 "2017-11-20T21:59:36Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > If this thing is 2 lakes, then anything is possible : [Google Maps](https://www.google.com/maps/place/North-South+Lake/@42.1978416,-74.0460718,16z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x89ddaffacff022f3:0x1b4c868547f22fae!8m2!3d42.199131!4d-74.041072) From the labels, that appears to be three lakes: South Lake, North Lake, and North South Lake. ---
**Author:** ![Wilson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/96bed5/32.png) [@Wilson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wilson)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2017, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-lakes-michigan-and-huron-one-lake-or-two/802148/25 "2017-11-20T23:17:33Z")
> [@Folacin](#): > > From the labels, that appears to be three lakes: South Lake, North Lake, and North South Lake. And they should be East Lake and West Lake, really! Didn’t they have compasses back then??? Beautiful campground, though. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2017, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-lakes-michigan-and-huron-one-lake-or-two/802148/26 "2017-11-21T00:55:34Z")
Georgian Bay also has Tinnerman Canoe Base (actually on the French River), a great Boy Scout camp. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2017, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-lakes-michigan-and-huron-one-lake-or-two/802148/27 "2017-11-21T03:04:26Z")
Are Europe and Asia one continent or two? It should be the same answer. You’d think so anyway, but I bet there’s people out there who say one continent and two lakes. And perhaps some people think it’s the other way around. If they count Lake St Clair as a great lake, then Lake Nipigon wants to be one too. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2017, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-lakes-michigan-and-huron-one-lake-or-two/802148/28 "2017-11-26T04:25:19Z")
> [@Mr\_Downtown](#): > > Trivia geeks know that any time a question begins with "Hydrologically, . . . " they can buzz in immediately and answer “Michigan and Huron.” As Ken Jennings noted in his very entertaining book _Brainiac_. He (or was it a friend of his?) once won a trivia contest just that way. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2017, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-lakes-michigan-and-huron-one-lake-or-two/802148/29 "2017-11-26T12:36:21Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > If this thing is 2 lakes, then anything is possible : [Google Maps](https://www.google.com/maps/place/North-South+Lake/@42.1978416,-74.0460718,16z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x89ddaffacff022f3:0x1b4c868547f22fae!8m2!3d42.199131!4d-74.041072) If you look at satellite view, those are really, really two lakes. I have no idea why Google Maps shows the connection between them as being so broad. Maybe it floods? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2017, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-lakes-michigan-and-huron-one-lake-or-two/802148/30 "2017-11-26T13:07:37Z")
The satellite view I’m seeing has the same shores as the maps view. But maybe it does change significantly with the water level (thus accounting for the confusing nomenclature), and maybe different zoom levels were taken when the levels were different (thus accounting for you and I seeing different things). ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2017, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-lakes-michigan-and-huron-one-lake-or-two/802148/31 "2017-11-26T22:52:16Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > The entire Great Lakes–St. Laurence system flows west to east / east-southeast. Except for the whole eastern half that bends and goes east-northeast. The inflection point has the eastern third of L. Erie, then Niagara, L. Ontario, St. Lawrence going east-northeast. I ought to know. That’s exactly where I was born and raised. The opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway was regionally a really big deal about the time I was born. But we were focused on the western half of the GL. **dtilque** is right about Lake Nipigon, geologically. Nipigon represents an aulacogen, a failed continental rift. It took a certain amount of rifting to form the GL basins. The glaciers enlarged the lake basins by scraping them over, but glaciers couldn’t carve out that much rock. The rifting that formed the basins themselves was much older. The western end of it trailed up past L. Superior as far as L. Nipigon. Past Nipigon is the point where, if it ripped, the whole North American continent could maybe rip apart. But that is the point where North America, held down securely by the great Canadian Shield, held fast. Speaking of the St. Lawrence Seaway: Bob Hope was from Cleveland, and he’s going “Thanks… for the zebra mussels… _Not!_” ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2017, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-lakes-michigan-and-huron-one-lake-or-two/802148/32 "2017-11-26T23:17:04Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > The satellite view I’m seeing has the same shores as the maps view. But maybe it does change significantly with the water level (thus accounting for the confusing nomenclature), and maybe different zoom levels were taken when the levels were different (thus accounting for you and I seeing different things). Also, not that about half of “North Lake” looks like the same kind of surface as the connector. There’s good chance that the pale green you are seeing is algae or water plants growing on top of the lake. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-lakes-michigan-and-huron-one-lake-or-two/802148.md?page=1)