On Thursday June 29th, we left Cleveland, bound for a long weekend in Northern Michigan to visit with friends and drop my older daughter off at summer camp near Traverse City. The day was one of several poor air quality days that we’ve had this summer in Northeast Ohio as the Canadian wildfire smoke made its way to our skies as well as those of millions of others. As we got in the car I paused for a minute wondering if I should dig our KN95 masks back out.  

The drive was unsettling. My younger daughter described it as “foggy” but it wasn’t a wet, grey mist. It was a dry haze with an orange tint. It felt sinister. The smoky air persisted the whole route across I-90 in Ohio and then as we turned and headed north into and across Michigan. 

white smoke wallpaper
Photo by Rafael Guajardo on Pexels.com

Luckily, the air quality improved on Friday and through the weekend, but we know that the smoke will return.

And while we’d all like to pretend otherwise, we’re all thinking the same thing: Will this be the new normal? Is this another dimension of our climate crisis that seems to be accelerating ever faster and faster? 

Let’s just say it: It’s a dark thought, and it’s hard to sit with. But by saying it aloud, we acknowledge that this frightening challenge is part of our shared reality. And by recognizing it as such, maybe those of us who feel despair surrounding climate change can lessen our individualized emotions and know the burden is shared.

On Saturday morning we drove to Frankfort, on Lake Michigan. We headed for the public beach where children poured out of our cars and gleefully headed for the shoreline and sand play. Childhood joy was on display.

The air was much clearer, but there was still some smoke lingering. It was enough that, when looking out at the lake, that bright horizon line I often mention wasn’t bright. The horizon wasn’t actually visible much at all, just gradations of blue between water and sky. 

What lay ahead in the distance was unseen and unknown.

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For centuries before the arrival of explorers and traders from Europe and the Far East around 1615, Indigenous peoples of many different tribes lived in the Great Lakes region. They were economically self-sustaining in their woodland and water environment. The earliest interactions with explorers and traders were dominated by fur-trading, and for over a century these interactions were mostly transactional. It was around the American Revolution that relations began to deteriorate as white settlers encroached on Indigenous lands. The power of disease and weaponry that white settlers brought killed and disempowered Indigenous peoples and eventually rendered most of the region under white authority.

It would be a disrespectful effort for me to try and acknowledge broadly the Indigenous peoples of the entire Great Lakes region; it would lump together an enormous swath of diverse peoples and histories. For more information on specifically acknowledging the Indigenous peoples of Northeast Ohio where I live, I turned to one of the most outstanding institutions in this region: the Cleveland Museum of Art.

I think that their Indigenous Peoples and Land Acknowledgement page along with the Q and A they include is thoughtful, respectful and directly states the obvious: land acknowledgements are often rightfully criticized for being too little, too late. However, for me, given a choice between saying “It is important to acknowledge those who lived on this land before me, many of whom lost their lives with European arrival and subsequent conquest of the land,” or saying “A land acknowledgement is an insincere, meaningless woke gesture”, I will choose the former.  I will choose it because it is the right thing to do.

The legacy of the people who lived on the land here for centuries prior to European arrival is omnipresent and yet often unrecognized. The name Ohio comes from an Onondowa’ga’ (Seneca) term meaning “beautiful river”. The Miami River and Miami University in Ohio are a direct reference to the Myaamia (Miami) peoples who lived in the region before forcibly signing away the right to their land.  

Here is my land acknowledgement, with credit to the Cleveland Museum of Art for the final two paragraphs: 

While today it is me standing on the shores of Lake Erie and looking out at the water and dark horizon line, for centuries prior there were others who stood and looked out at the same inland sea. Many of the Indigenous peoples who lived on this land were eventually dispossessed of it. Their existence has often been diminished to a short chapter in the arc of North American history, as it has been told by those with the power to craft the story. With my whole heart and mind, I acknowledge their own stories.   

These are the nations that signed Ohio treaties in the 1700s and 1800s: the Odawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi of the Anishinaabeg; Delaware; Seneca and Cayuga of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois); Myaamia (Miami); Kaskasjia, Piankeshaw, and Wea, today of the Peoria; Shawnee; and Wyandotte – along with the Erie and ancient Whittlesey peoples.

These are the Indigenous peoples who continue to occupy land and urban spaces in Northeast Ohio today: the Choctaw, Dine (Navajo), Haudenosaunee (Iroquois), Lakota (Sioux), Odawa, and Ojibwe nations as well as others.

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When I started this blog, my Uncle Mike wrote to me and said: I don’t know a lot about the Great Lakes but I have read about the famous wolf and moose study on Isle Royale.  

I had never heard about this study and frankly was only peripherally aware of Isle Royale National Park. Lo and behold, about six weeks later, I’m at the library with my girls, and on the shelf in the young adult nonfiction section is a book titled The Wolves and Moose of Isle Royale: Restoring an Island Ecosystem with text by Nancy Castaldo and photographs by Morgan Heim.  

I’m sharing the book cover text because it’s a great layperson overview and I couldn’t do a better job summarizing – all credit to Nancy Castaldo and Clarion Books:

“On Isle Royale, a remote island national park surrounded by Lake Superior, a thrilling drama is unfolding between wolves and moose, the island’s ultimate predator and prey. For over sixty years, in what has been known as the longest study of a predator-prey relationship in the world, scientists have observed the importance of wolves to Isle Royale’s unique ecology. But due to illness and underlying factors, the population of wolves on the island has dropped while the number of moose has increased, putting the Isle Royale ecosystem in jeopardy. 

In order to restore the island’s ecological balance, scientists are stepping in… If scientists are successful in growing the island’s wolf population, they can potentially restore the island’s balance and explore ways to repair other damaged ecosystems.”

A couple takeaways from the book:

Isle Royale is the real deal when talking about a remote island wilderness ripe for a living ecologic laboratory. 278 miles from Ontario, 61 miles from Houghton, Michigan and 40 miles from Grand Portage, Minnesota, it is the least visited of all the United States’ 63 national parks. There is little human presence on the island (one lodge, one food establishment, no cell service and close to no Wi-Fi) and it closes for over six months in the wintertime due to inaccessability. 

As always, the facts of the story illustrate the interconnectedness of the natural world, of which we are a part. On the island, the wolves eat the moose.  If there are not enough wolves, the moose overpopulate. The overpopulated moose overeat the trees and bushes on the island, eventually causing the moose to start suffering from starvation and destroying food and habitat for other animals. The ecosystem becomes imbalanced and unhealthy. 

The predictable debate that occurred on whether to reintroduce wolves to the island is really part of bigger questions around environmental ethics. What is wilderness? What are the reasons that humans should intervene in ecological management of wilderness?

creek in a forest
Photo by Andrei Tanase on Pexels.com

In the end, the argument that resulted in the wolf reintroduction project that started in 2018 and that continues at this time rested on the words of the famous naturalist Aldo Leopold: “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”

The book itself feels very accessible in its design – a photojournalistic structure with gorgeous pictures supporting text that is broken up well with headings and boxes. The book left me hopeful that our young generations might still see benefits of a physical book versus just online content. It was such a joy to find the book sitting on the library shelf that day. It felt a bit like it was there waiting for me. 

This post is dedicated to my Uncle Mike and his enduring love of the natural world.

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What makes an island special?  A couple things come to mind: Given their geographic distinction, islands are sometimes home to rare species or specialized ecosystems and for that reason can be important places of ecological research. They are often rest stops and nesting sites for birds. Islands may, due to their isolation, develop specific cultures among people who live or spend significant time there. And finally, their defining feature – land completely surrounded by water – can provide people with a place of rest and respite.

flock of white birds photo during sunset

There are approximately 35,000 islands in the North American Great Lakes. Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron is the largest freshwater island in the world at 1,068 square miles (it’s 100 miles across!).  This past weekend we spent a day on  a much smaller one – Kelleys Island in Lake Erie (4 square miles). 

It was all the things you want for a day trip – easy drive (90 minutes from our house), easy parking (in Marblehead, OH), and easy ferry ride (22 minutes). The ferry itself was a sensory experience for my girls – wind whipping hair around, the smell of fuel, the sound of the water as the boat cut through it. The famous Cedar Point roller coasters in Sandusky could be seen faintly in the distance, steel curling and arching like ribbon loops.

Upon arrival, we rented a golf cart and puttered north to Kelleys Island State Park. Our first stop was the Glacial Grooves Geological Preserve, the most widely known attraction on the island. In fact, the preserve is home to the most famous glacial grooves in the world and it was designated a National Natural Landmark in 1967. They are really quite stunning. Deeply and smoothly carved, the grooves look human-made and not the product of an ice sheet that retreated from the region approximately 14,000 years ago.      

After the grooves, we strolled over to the North Shore Loop Hiking Trail and down to the beach where you can rent kayaks and paddleboards. The girls were very excited about the golf cart and so we took a drive, first circling the eastern part of the island. We ended up finding the Kelleys Island Wine Co. and purchased lunch from the KI Cantina there. We settled into a brightly colored picnic table in the shade. The girls enjoyed looking at the cows and goats in adjacent pastures and watching people play horseshoes. We then circled the western part of the island and landed back at the main commercial area where we popped in some shops before heading back to the mainland. 

A Great Lake + an island + a golf cart + saltwater taffy from Missy Magoo’s Candy and Gift Shop = a solid start to summer.

top view photo of sliced watermelons
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I shared in one of my first posts that it was a solo retreat in January 2021 that launched a deeper relationship for me with the Great Lakes. I still seek that alone time on Lake Erie as a retreat from this complex and sometimes bewildering world.  

Eighteen months after my cottage in Geneva, Ohio, I returned east to Madison in September 2022 to stay at a tiny Airbnb right on the lake (for $95 a night!) called the Lemon Drop Cottage. Cuteness alert: despite being a sour fruit, cottage decor could not have been more sweet and cheerful! During this 36-hour retreat, I started writing content for this blog, read, and walked along the lake at Lake Erie Bluffs and Lakeshore Reservation, both Lake County Metroparks. 

I love walking generally – I find it tremendously restorative.  While I’ve never been able to truly get into a meditation practice, I find walking to be meditative.  The rhythm of the body in movement, feet cycling, and outdoor air flowing through the nose and lungs sets a cadence for my thoughts and emotions as they run their course. This feeling of self in the world – of presence – is especially the case if I can walk along the lake.

In her book 52 Ways to Walk, Annabel Streets references an expansive 2019 study that looked at the well-being effects of spending time by the sea. A dataset that included over 26,000 people living in England concluded that those living within a mile of the sea had better mental health and greater happiness markers than those inland. But from my read, the saltwater doesn’t appear to be the key variable. Things like environments with a sensory rhythm (waves), specific light patterns, and ambient sounds (birds, water) come up in descriptions of why the sea makes people feel good. I would argue that if it’s these things, then our inland seas offer them all (the wave action is real on the Great Lakes, albeit different in kind).

And for me, I personally love the lush forests that you often wind through leading right up to the lake.  Walking and then resting in the deep shade of a tree, looking out at the lake = a pure and honest contentment.     

On March 25, 2023 the New York Times published a worthwhile opinion article by the actor Andrew McCarthy titled “Whatever the Problem, It’s Probably Solved by Walking”. The piece included many of the profound thoughts from the ages about walking including an observation from the great John Muir: “I only went out for a walk… going out, I found, was really going in.” 

The precious summer months are here. Water or trees or city sidewalk: Go out. Go out. Go out.

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I love when you find a non-fiction book that weaves multiple engaging storylines together in a readable, cohesive, and impactful way. I found all of these things when I picked journalist Dan Egan’s 2017 book The Death and Life of the Great Lakes off the shelves of my favorite independent bookstore in Cleveland, Loganberry Books.

A twist on Jane Jacobs’ The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the book is a testament to both the positive and negative impact humans have had on the ecology of the Great Lakes (mostly negative, to be real). Egan opens the book recounting the incredible ambition and optimism of the late 1950s that propelled one of the most expansive infrastructure projects in history: the digging of the St. Lawrence Seaway. The idea was to dig a nautical expressway through the St. Lawrence river that would open up a shipping channel from the Atlantic Ocean and coast and would drive Great Lakes cities to become dynamic domestic and international commercial ports. Project leaders, politicians and media figures boldly talked about this “Fourth Seacoast” for North America. 

But the ships and great port cities never really materialized. And the reason is a real kicker. In a brilliant short vignette, Egan tells the story of a gas station attendant turned truck driver named Malcolm Purcell McLean who one day in 1956 put into action an idea he had dreamed up while sitting in his truck watching stevedores haphazardly and inefficiently load ships at a port. He took an old oil tanker, installed a raised platform on it, and built a structure that could hold 58 trailer trucks whose tires had been removed. The structure could hold 58 containers. It was still a number of years before this invention completely took hold of the shipping industry. But it was also still a number of years before the Seaway was completed. And by the time it was fully operational, the channel and locks built were too narrow for the container ships that came to dominate the shipping industry in the 1960s. Whomp whomp.

green and gray evergreen cargo ship

Tragically what did materialize from the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1959 was ecologic disaster. The cargo that was delivered by international ships came via the millions of gallons of ballast waters that kept ships’ weight steady and balanced while sailing and were then released near and in ports when they picked-up cargo. In those millions of gallons of water were millions of living organisms from around the globe – some of which found new life in the freshwaters of the Great Lakes.    

Many of the storylines that follow in the book are so good that they are worthy of their own blog posts – a scientist who singlehandedly found a way to rid the Great Lakes of sea lamprey (do not look this creature up unless you want to give yourself quite a fright), the incredible effort to keep Asian carp out of the Great Lakes, and the complex root causes of Lake Erie’s toxic algae problem that endanger drinking water. You can wait for my synopses of these storylines, or you can head to your local library or independent bookstore for this very worthwhile book.

body of water under blue sky
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This coming weekend, April 21-23 is Adopt-a-Beach spring kickoff for 2023. Adopt-a-Beach is a program of the Alliance for the Great Lakes. If you live in the Great Lakes region, the Alliance can help you find a beach clean-up – or organize one! 

At a beach clean-up organized in coordination with the Alliance, there is a leader who helps distribute materials (e.g. gloves, buckets) and gives an overview of the data collection aspect of the clean-up. Adopt-a-Beach volunteers have been collecting data during beach clean-ups since 2003. To do this, someone is tasked with keeping track of what trash is being pick-up, and at the end of the event, the weight of it. 

The data has shown a number of things: Volunteers are removing close to 15 tons of trash from beaches each year. About 85% of this trash is made entirely or partially of plastic. 25% of litter picked up is food-related – like plastic cups, utensils and takeout containers. Much of the plastic collected are small pieces that have already broken down or off of a larger piece. These tiny pieces matter! During a cleanup it’s easy to realize that they are actually the most likely trash to be eaten by animals in and around the lakes when they mistake the microplastics for pieces of food.

Things that I love about beach clean-ups: on-boarding is quick, they are hands-on, physical activities outdoors, and they can be a great group or solo activity. 

I’ve participated in three different beach clean-ups thus far and each one was rewarding and satisfying in its own way. In July 2022 I was at Euclid Beach on Lake Erie at 7 AM on a Saturday morning on my own for a beach clean-up organized by the Cleveland Metroparks. Everything about the outing was a joy: the water was beautiful, the beach was quiet and there were few people out when I got started. By 8:30 when the clean-up ended, there were people walking and biking, a number of whom stopped to thank me for my efforts. I drove home with the windows open listening to a good podcast and was home in time for breakfast with my family.

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The issue: Plastic pollution is a problem in the Great Lakes. Research from the Rochester Institute of Technology estimates that over 22 million pounds of plastic enter the Great Lakes each year. 

Why this matters: Over time plastic breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces and particles that can end up in drinking water and living organisms in the lakes. These microplastics may eventually be ingested by humans when we eat or drink something with lake origin. Plastic particles have even been found in beers brewed in the Great Lakes region. While the full impact on the animal and human body is not known, there are concerning aspects of humans ingesting about a credit card sized amount of plastic each week (an official estimate according to the Alliance for the Great Lakes).    

close up photo of plastic bottle

What actions can you take? 

Reduce your own plastic use. Think more expansively than just eliminating single-use plastic drink containers and grocery bags – although do these for sure! Could you eliminate ziploc and single-use snack bags? Could you replace hand soap and dish soap containers with a permanent container and purchase larger refill containers? Could you replace a takeout order with eating in a restaurant or cooking at home? Could you forgo one to-go coffee a week? The Alliance for the Great Lake has a plastic-free toolkit for download if you want to explore more possibilities.

Learn more about the concept of extended producer responsibility. Creating new laws around this concept would require plastic producers to be responsible for their products through the product’s full lifecycle. Over time these laws would force producers to eliminate the most harmful plastics, pay for disposal, or produce less plastic. You can visit the Alliance for the Great Lakes action center to send congressional delegates a message requesting they support extended producer responsibility legislation. 

Lead or participate in beach clean-ups if you live near a Great Lake. More about this in my next post. Stay tuned! 

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If you have read earlier posts, you know that my interest, advocacy and activism related to the Great Lakes is relatively new. It’s not my professional work, and not my sole interest, but the Great Lakes have become a significant actor in my life. I’m sharing today how I shifted my energy in this direction, which is by listening to a whisper.

In her fantastic book The Lightmaker’s Manifesto: How to Work for Change Without Losing Your Joy, Karen Walrond shapes this activist origin story and I immediately connected with it. She interviews a consultant and activist in the arena of women’s and girls’ rights who shares about “the call”:

… for some people there isn’t a single awakening experience. Instead, it’s just a whisper. And I’ve talked to young people who hear the whisper, and they want to get involved more, but they don’t know how.  When they ask for my advice, I always tell them to keep listening to the whisper. Don’t ignore it. Keep listening, and let it guide you to do the very first thing, even if it’s just getting curious.

Getting curious is exactly what I did after my January 2021 retreat on Lake Erie. That year, I read two books about the Great Lakes that anchored my knowledge base – The Living Great Lakes by Jerry Dennis and The Death and Life of the Great Lakes by Dan Egan.  

In 2022, I started to volunteer for two organizations. I became an Ambassador with the Alliance for the Great Lakes, a nonpartisan nonprofit working across the region and in Washington, DC at the federal level, to protect the lakes. As an Ambassador, I join monthly virtual meet-ups with others from around the region for learning sessions on Great Lakes issues. I represent the Alliance at local events in Northeast Ohio. Last year I tabled at Cleveland State University’s EarthFest and at an environmental justice event. I even had the opportunity to be on a panel after a local documentary film festival showed a series of short films on water resources.   

I also joined the Cleveland Metroparks Watershed Volunteer Program (WVP). My volunteer efforts with the WVP focus more on the watershed systems in Northeast Ohio that feed into Lake Erie rather than the lake directly. I have participated in water monitoring activities, planted trees, and cleaned and sorted seeds for rain gardens. These efforts and learnings have impressed upon me the incredible interconnectedness of land and water.

As a result of my advocacy and activism, I’m living in an atmosphere of growth – and a space of creativity I didn’t know I inhabited. As Elizabeth Gilbert writes in her book Big Magic, “I believe that curiosity is the secret. Curiosity is the truth and the way of creative living.” I’m so thankful that you are curious enough about the Great Lakes to join this blog community. But I wonder what other whispers you might hear as well. I encourage you to listen to them.

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Climate change is a journey that we are all on for the rest of our lives. So let’s get right to the point: How will climate change impact the Great Lakes?

climate road landscape people
Photo by Markus Spiske on Pexels.com

Warming temperatures, extreme weather and precipitation events and changes in growing seasons will impact the Great Lakes in many ways, notably:

  1. Increase in invasive species;
  2. Expansion of harmful algal blooms;
  3. Fluctuation of water levels; 
  4. Decline in coastal health.

Why do these matter? 

Some of these threats will be the subject of their own posts in the future. But a few connections for foundational understanding. 

As a fragile ecosystem, the Great Lakes have already been permanently damaged by invasive species. When non-native species are introduced by deliberate or accidental human activity, they often have no natural predators. Invasive species can decrease native fish or other species and degrade lake aesthetic value, threatening existing ecologies and economies. The zebra mussel infestation is one of the most prominent invasive species storylines of the Great Lakes. The mussels, which likely arrived in ballast waters or on ships from international seas, prolifically filter out algae that native species need for food, essentially sucking life out of the Great Lakes. They have created a dramatic upset in the ecosystem and, by reducing plant and animal life in the lakes, make them more prone to harmful algae. The mussels are also a physical nuisance, littering beaches, clogging pipes and even damaging boat motors.   

Harmful algal blooms upset the ecological balance of nutrients, plants and animals in and around the lakes. They can impact the respiratory health of animals and humans and they can threaten access to clean drinking water. The drinking water crisis in Toledo, Ohio in July 2014 raised awareness of this issue, but did not yield political or popular willpower to change human activity, notably in the agricultural sector, creating some of the challenge. 

Scientists see a future of significant water level variability due to climate change. High water levels and powerful waves and storms are causing coastal damage, including infrastructure damage along the shoreline and eroding beaches. A March 2020 analysis of rising Lake Michigan waters led the city of South Haven, Michigan to cite a cost of $16M to repair damage to infrastructure of the marina, stormwater pipes and utility lines and to make necessary improvements to their water filtration plant.

Low water levels due to greater evaporation as the climate warms put shipping, recreation and hydropower at risk and increases the possibility of harmful algal blooms, which thrive in shallower, warmer waters.   

Climate change also exacerbates existing water inequities.  Low-income communities and communities of color often bear the burden of environmental threats to the Great Lakes since they are often located in closer proximity to polluted waterways and access points and are more likely to have old and deteriorating infrastructure (e.g. lead water lines; older sewer pipes).

Our climate change journey will not have a happily ever after where everything turns out OK in the end. However, by better educating ourselves about impacts and potential mitigating activities, we can take personal and civic action to try and improve outcomes in our local communities, country and world.

I will continue to profile the impact of climate change on the Great Lakes region; it’s important that we honestly face and navigate the challenges. But I will also explore a connected, but distinct question: Will the Great Lakes region be a climate refuge? Stay tuned.

Sugarloaf Mountain west of Marquette, MI, Lake Superior
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