Lake Champlain: The Sixth Great Lake?
I have always loved Vermont. Growing up, we would visit family living south of Burlington in Shelburne. Invariably, visits included time looking out over the gorgeous views of Lake Champlain with the Adirondacks in New York state on the westward shore.
Lake Champlain is 120 miles long and 12 miles at it’s widest point. Average depth is quite similar to Lake Erie at 64 feet; it’s deepest point is just south of my Shelburne family in Charlotte, VT (Essex, NY on the other shore) where depth is 400 feet. There are 71 islands in the lake and around 200,000 people get their drinking water from it. To me, Lake Champlain is a “great lake”. However, it is not formally one of the North American Great Lakes, although it was at one point, for 18 days in 1998!
Lake Champlain has numerous similarities to the Great Lakes. It is both inter-state and international, with its northern shores sitting in Canada. It sits at a similar latitude, has a similar aquatic ecosystem, and most notably, it drains into the St. Lawrence River like all of the Great Lakes do. Interestingly, Lake Champlain actually has a much higher land-to-lake ratio in defining its watershed area than the Great Lakes. For every one square mile of surface water on the lake, 18 square miles of land drain waters, sediments and pollutants into Lake Champlain.
However, Lake Champlain as a body of water is much smaller than the other Great Lakes. Lake Ontario, the smallest of the five, has 15 times the surface area of Lake Champlain. By water volume, 19 Lake Champlains would fit in Lake Erie.
It is this size difference that has generally kept it from officially being the sixth Great Lake. The 1998 story is that Senator Patrick Leahy from Vermont drafted a bill that would include funding to increase research and environmental advocacy for Lake Champlain. A single sentence in the bill, which President Bill Clinton signed on March 8, 1998, declared Lake Champlain to be a Great Lake, capital-G and capital-L. This single sentence made Lake Champlain eligible to access federal funding for education and research.
Well, Midwest congressional parties went into an uproar considering Lake Champlain’s much smaller size than the five Great Lakes in their region. The Great Lake status was rescinded. However, not all was lost for Senator Leahy’s efforts. Lake Champlain did gain a Sea Grant office that supports conservation efforts for the lake and its watershed.
IMO, without diminishing the five Great Lakes, I think we can agree that Lake Champlain is a great lake. If you haven’t seen it, “great” is actually too muted a word. Stunning or gorgeous would really be more appropriate.
This post is dedicated to my native Vermonter Uncle Bob and adopted, devoted Vermonter Aunt Kate with whom I have wonderful memories of the green mountain state.
