The Erie Canal is a historic canal in upstate New York that runs east–west between the Hudson River and Lake Erie. Completed in 1825, the canal was the first navigable waterway connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, vastly reducing the costs of transporting people and goods across the Appalachians. In effect, the canal accelerated the settlement of the Great Lakes region, the westward expansion of the United States, and the economic ascendancy of New York State. It has been called "The Nation's First Superhighway."
The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the east-central interior of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. The five lakes are Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario and are in general on or near the Canada–United States border. Hydrologically, Michigan and Huron are a single body of water joined at the Straits of Mackinac. The Great Lakes Waterway enables modern travel and shipping by water among the lakes.
Lake Erie is the fourth-largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and also has the shortest average water residence time. At its deepest point Lake Erie is 210 feet (64 m) deep.
The white bass, silver bass, or sand bass is a freshwater fish of the temperate bass family Moronidae. commonly around 12-15 inches long. The species' main color is silver-white to pale green. Its back is dark, with white sides and belly, and with narrow dark stripes running lengthwise on its sides. It has large, rough scales and two dorsal fins. They are widely distributed across North America, inhabiting large reservoirs and rivers. When mating in the spring, they are more often found in shallow rivers, creeks, and streams. They have been introduced in some places as sport fish and also to predate on nuisance fish, such as gizzard shad. It is the state fish of Oklahoma.
Erie County is a county along the shore of Lake Erie in western New York State. As of the 2020 census, the population was 954,236. The county seat is Buffalo, which makes up about 28% of the county's population. Both the county and Lake Erie were named for the regional Iroquoian language-speaking Erie tribe of Native Americans, who lived in the area before 1654. They were later pushed out by the more powerful Iroquoian nations tribes.
Point Pelee National Park is a national park in Essex County in southwestern Ontario, Canada where it extends into Lake Erie. The word pelée is French for 'bald'. Point Pelee consists of a peninsula of land, mainly of marsh and woodland habitats, that tapers to a sharp point as it extends into Lake Erie. Middle Island, also part of Point Pelee National Park, was acquired in 2000 and is just north of the Canada–United States border in Lake Erie. Point Pelee is the southernmost point of mainland Canada, and is located on a foundation of glacial sand, silt and gravel that bites into Lake Erie. This spit of land is slightly more than seven kilometres long by 4.5 kilometres (2.8 mi) wide at its northern base. Established in 1918, Point Pelee was the first national park in Canada to be established for conservation. It was designated as a Ramsar site on 27 May 1987.
The Great Black Swamp was a glacially fed wetland in northwest Ohio and northeast Indiana, United States, that existed from the end of the Wisconsin glaciation until the late 19th century. Comprising extensive swamps and marshes, with some higher, drier ground interspersed, it occupied what was formerly the southwestern part of proglacial Lake Maumee, a Holocene precursor to Lake Erie. The area was about 25 miles (40 km) wide and 100 miles (160 km) long, covering an estimated 1,500 square miles (4,000 km2). Gradually drained and settled in the second half of the 19th century, it is now highly productive farmland. However, this development has been detrimental to the ecosystem as a result of agricultural runoff. This runoff, in turn, has contributed to frequent toxic algal blooms in Lake Erie.
The zebra mussel is a small freshwater mussel. The species originates from the lakes of southern Russia and Ukraine, but has been accidentally introduced to numerous other areas and has become an invasive species in many countries worldwide. Since the 1980s, the species has invaded the Great Lakes, Hudson River, and Lake Travis.
The Bessemer and Lake Erie Railroad is a class II railroad that operates in northwestern Pennsylvania and northeastern Ohio.
Port Stanley is a community in the Municipality of Central Elgin, Elgin County in Ontario, Canada. It is located on the north shore of Lake Erie at the mouth of Kettle Creek. In 2016, it had a population of 2,148.
Michael Lind is an American writer and academic. He has explained and defended the tradition of American democratic nationalism in a number of books, beginning with The Next American Nation: The New Nationalism and the Fourth American Revolution (1995). He is currently a professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.
Presque Isle State Park is a 3,112-acre (1,259 ha) Pennsylvania State Park on an arching, sandy peninsula that juts into Lake Erie, 4 miles (6 km) west of the city of Erie, in Millcreek Township, Erie County, Pennsylvania, in the United States. The peninsula sweeps northeastward, surrounding Presque Isle Bay along the park's southern coast. It has 13 miles (21 km) of roads, 21 miles (34 km) of recreational trails, 13 beaches for swimming, and a marina. Popular activities at the park include swimming, boating, hiking, biking, and birdwatching.
The American snout or common snout butterfly is a member of the subfamily Libytheinae in the brush-footed butterfly family, Nymphalidae. This species is found in both North and South America. The larval host plants are Celtis species on which the eggs are laid singly. Massive migrations of this species often attract attention in the Texas and Mexican newspapers.
A harmful algal bloom (HAB), or excessive algae growth, is an algal bloom that causes negative impacts to other organisms by production of natural algae-produced toxins, mechanical damage to other organisms, or by other means. HABs are sometimes defined as only those algal blooms that produce toxins, and sometimes as any algal bloom that can result in severely lower oxygen levels in natural waters, killing organisms in marine or fresh waters. Blooms can last from a few days to many months. After the bloom dies, the microbes that decompose the dead algae use up more of the oxygen, generating a "dead zone" which can cause fish die-offs. When these zones cover a large area for an extended period of time, neither fish nor plants are able to survive. Harmful algal blooms in marine environments are often called "red tides".
Offshore oil and gas in the United States provides a large portion of the nation’s oil and gas supply. Large oil and gas reservoirs are found under the sea offshore from Louisiana, Texas, California, and Alaska. Environmental concerns have prevented or restricted offshore drilling in some areas, and the issue has been hotly debated at the local and national levels.
Potamon fluviatile is a freshwater crab found in or near wooded streams, rivers and lakes in Southern Europe. It is an omnivore with broad ecological tolerances, and adults typically reach 50 mm (2 in) in size during their 10–12 year lifespan. They inhabit burrows and are aggressive, apparently outcompeting native crayfish.
The Lake Erie Storm are the athletic teams that represent Lake Erie College, located in Painesville, Ohio, in intercollegiate sports as a member of the Division II level of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), primarily competing in the Great Midwest Athletic Conference (G-MAC) since the 2017–18 academic year. The Storm previously competed as a member of the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (GLIAC) from 2010–11 to 2016–17; as well as an NCAA D-II Independent from 2008–09 to 2009–10. Prior joining to NCAA Division II, the Storm competed as a member of the Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference (AMCC) of the NCAA Division III ranks from 1997–98 to 2007–08.
The common watersnake is a species of large, nonvenomous, common snake in the family Colubridae. The species is native to North America. It is frequently mistaken for the venomous cottonmouth.
The orangethroat darter is a species of freshwater ray-finned fish, a darter from the subfamily Etheostomatinae, part of the family Percidae, which also contains the perches, ruffes and pikeperches. It is endemic to the central and eastern United States where it is native to parts of the Mississippi River Basin and Lake Erie Basin. Its typical habitat includes shallow gravel riffles in cooler streams and rocky runs and pools in headwaters, creeks, and small rivers, with sand, gravel, rubble, or rock substrates. It forages on the bottom for the aquatic larvae of midges, blackfly, mayfly and caddisfly, as well as isopods and amphipods. Spawning takes place in spring, the selected sites often being the upper stretches of riffles with sandy and gravelly bottoms interspersed with larger cobble. Reproductive success is high in this species. No particular threats have been identified, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature has assessed its conservation status as being of "least concern".
The Mixedwood Plains Ecozone is the Canadian ecozone with the most southern extent, covering all of southwestern Ontario, and parts of central and northeastern Ontario and southern Quebec along the Saint Lawrence River. It was originally dominated by temperate deciduous forest growing mostly on limestone covered by glacial till. It is the smallest ecozone in Canada, but it includes the country's most productive industrial and commercial region, and is home to nearly half of Canada's population, including its two largest cities, Toronto, Ontario and Montreal, Quebec. Hence, little of the original forest cover remains, making protection of the remaining forests a high conservation priority. This ecozone includes two regions described by J.S. Rowe in his classic Forest Regions of Canada: the entire Deciduous Forest Region, and the southern portions of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Forest Region. In the province of Ontario, the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources maps this area as Site Regions 6E and 7E.
