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 they 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.
Isle Royale National Park is an American national park consisting of Isle Royale, along with more than 400 small adjacent islands and the surrounding waters of Lake Superior, in the state of Michigan.
Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume and the third-largest by surface area, after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the east, its basin is conjoined with that of Lake Huron through the 3+1⁄2-mile (5.6-kilometer) wide, 295-foot deep Straits of Mackinac, giving it the same surface elevation as its easterly counterpart; the two are geologically a single lake.
Michigan is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. It has land borders with Wisconsin to the northwest, and Indiana and Ohio to the south; it is also connected by Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, and Erie to the states of Minnesota and Illinois, and the Canadian province of Ontario. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly 97,000 sq mi (250,000 km2), Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the largest by area east of the Mississippi River. Its capital is Lansing, and its largest city is Detroit. Metro Detroit is among the nation's most populous and largest metropolitan economies. Its name derives from a gallicized variant of the original Ojibwe word ᒥᓯᑲᒥ, meaning "large water" or "large lake".
The Upper Peninsulaof Michigan—also known as Upper Michigan or colloquially the U.P.—is the northern and more elevated of the two major landmasses that make up the U.S. state of Michigan; it is separated from the Lower Peninsula by the Straits of Mackinac. It is bounded primarily by Lake Superior to the north, separated from the Canadian province of Ontario at the east end by the St. Marys River, and flanked by Lake Huron and Lake Michigan along much of its south. Although the peninsula extends as a geographic feature into the state of Wisconsin, the state boundary follows the Montreal and Menominee rivers and a line connecting them.
Door County is the easternmost county in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 census, the population was 30,066. Its county seat is Sturgeon Bay. It is named after the strait between the Door Peninsula and Washington Island. The dangerous passage, known as Death's Door, contains shipwrecks and was known to Native Americans and early French explorers. The county was created in 1851 and organized in 1861. Nicknamed the “Cape Cod of the Midwest,” Door County is a popular Upper Midwest vacation destination. It is also home to a small Walloon population.
La Pointe is an unincorporated community in the town of La Pointe, Ashland County, Wisconsin, United States. It is on the western shore of Madeline Island, the largest of the Apostle Islands. Downtown La Pointe is adjacent to the Madeline Island Ferry dock. La Pointe has a post office with ZIP code 54850.
The Apostle Islands are a group of 22 islands in Lake Superior, off the Bayfield Peninsula in northern Wisconsin. The majority of the islands are located in Ashland County—only Sand, York, Eagle, and Raspberry Islands are located in Bayfield County. All the islands except for Madeline Island are part of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. The islands in Ashland County are all in the Town of La Pointe, except for Long Island, which is in the Town of Sanborn, while those in Bayfield County are in the Towns of Russell and Bayfield.
In the U.S. state of Wisconsin, the Lake Superior Lowland, also known as the Superior Coastal Plain, is a geographical region located in the far northern part of the state bordering Lake Superior. It covers about 1,250 square miles (3,200 km2), and does not extend beyond 20 miles (32 km) from the Lake Superior shore.
The Driftless Area, also known as Bluff Country, the Blufflands, the Paleozoic Plateau, and the Coulee Region, is a topographical and cultural region in the Midwestern United States that comprises southwestern Wisconsin, southeastern Minnesota, northeastern Iowa, and the extreme northwestern corner of Illinois. The Driftless Area is a USDA Level III Ecoregion: Ecoregion 52. The Driftless Area takes up a large portion of the Upper Midwest forest–savanna transition.
Porte des Morts, also known as Porte des Mortes, the Door of Death, and Death's Door is a strait linking Lake Michigan and Green Bay between the northern tip of the Door Peninsula and the southernmost of the Potawatomi Islands. At its narrowest reach between Plum Island and the peninsula, the Porte des Morts Passage is about one and one third miles across. The name is French and means "door of the dead".
The Door Peninsula is a peninsula in eastern Wisconsin, separating the southern part of the Green Bay from Lake Michigan. The peninsula includes northern Kewaunee County, northeastern Brown County, and the mainland portion of Door County. It is on the western side of the Niagara Escarpment. Well known for its cherry and apple orchards, the Door Peninsula is a popular tourism destination. With the 1881 completion of the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal, the northern half of the peninsula became an island.
Lac Vieux Desert is a lake in the United States divided between Gogebic County, Michigan, and Vilas County, Wisconsin. Fed primarily by springs in the surrounding swamps, it is the source of the Wisconsin River, which flows out of its southwest corner. The lake contains a number of small islands, especially in its northeastern lobe, including Draper Island, in Michigan, and Duck Island, in Wisconsin.
Washington Island is an island of the state of Wisconsin situated in Lake Michigan. Lying about 7 miles (11 km) northeast of the tip of the Door Peninsula, it is part of Door County, Wisconsin. The island has a year-round population of 708 people according to the 2010 census. It has a land area of 60.9 km² and comprises over 92 percent of the land area of the town of Washington, as well as all of its population. The unincorporated community of Detroit Harbor is situated on the island. It is the largest in a group of islands that includes Plum, Detroit, Hog, Pilot, Fish, and Rock Islands. These islands form the Town of Washington. Detroit Harbor bay is on the south side of the island. A large part of Washington Island's economy is based on tourism.
Madeline Island is an island in Lake Superior. Now part of Ashland County, Wisconsin, it has long been a spiritual center of the Lake Superior Chippewa. Although the largest of the Apostle Islands, it is not included in the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. It is the only island in the Apostle Island chain open to commercial development and private ownership.
Wisconsin, a state in the Midwestern United States, has a vast and diverse geography famous for its landforms created by glaciers during the Wisconsin glaciation 17,000 years ago. The state can be generally divided into five geographic regions—Lake Superior Lowland, Northern Highland, Central Plain, Eastern Ridges & Lowlands, and Western Upland. The southwestern part of the state, which was not covered by glaciers during the most recent ice age, is known as the Driftless Area. The Wisconsin glaciation formed the Wisconsin Dells, Devil's Lake, and the Baraboo Range. A number of areas are protected in the state, including Devil's Lake State Park, the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, and the Chequamegon–Nicolet National Forest.
Michigan consists of two peninsulas surrounded primarily by four of the Great Lakes and a variety of nearby islands. The Upper Peninsula is bounded on the southwest by Wisconsin, and the Lower Peninsula is bounded on the south by Indiana and Ohio. Both land masses are also separated from the Canadian province of Ontario by waterways of the Great Lakes, and from each other by the Straits of Mackinac. Because its land is largely surrounded by the Great Lakes, which flow into the Saint Lawrence River, Michigan is the only U.S. state whose streams and rivers are almost entirely within the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence watershed.
Due to its unique geography, being made of two peninsulas surrounded by the Great Lakes, Michigan has depended on many ferries for connections to transport people, vehicles and trade. The most famous modern ferries are those which carry people and goods across the Straits of Mackinac to the car-free Mackinac Island but before the Mackinac Bridge was built, large numbers of ferries carried people and cars between the two peninsulas. Other ferries continue to provide transportation to small islands and across the Detroit River to Canada. Ferries once provided transport to island parks for city dwellers. The state's only national park, Isle Royale cannot be reached by road and is normally accessed by ferry. The largest ferries in Michigan are the car ferries which cross Lake Michigan to Wisconsin. One of these, the SS Badger is one of the last remaining coal steamers on the Great Lakes and serves as a section of US Highway 10 (US 10). The Badger is also the largest ferry in Michigan, capable of carrying 600 passengers and 180 autos.
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