Lake Superior

Lake Superior is a giant lake in North America.

It is so wide that you cannot see the other side. The United States is on one shore and Canada is on the other. Its water is fresh, not salty. It is deep and very cold.

Lake Superior is the biggest of the five Great Lakes. The United States and Canada share it: Ontario lies to the north and east, and Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan to the west and south. It is about 563 kilometers long and 258 kilometers wide, and its water covers about 82,100 square kilometers.

It is also the deepest and coldest of the Great Lakes, 406 meters deep at its deepest point. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) measures its water at about 12,100 cubic kilometers, which is more than Lakes Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario hold together. All that water slowly drains east into Lake Huron through the St. Marys River.

Britannica describes Lake Superior as the most northwesterly and largest of the five Great Lakes, bounded by Ontario to the east and north, Minnesota to the west, and Wisconsin and Michigan to the south. It is 563 km long and 258 km wide, with a mean surface elevation of about 180 m. The EPA's table of Great Lakes physical features gives a water area of 82,100 km², a land drainage area of 127,700 km², an average depth of 147 m, a maximum of 406 m, a volume of 12,100 km³ and a shoreline, including islands, of 4,385 km.

The lake's volume exceeds the combined 10,584 km³ of the other four lakes in the EPA table, and its retention time, the time it would take to empty at the current outflow rate with no water added, is 191 years. Because its outlet works like a porous dam and its area is large compared with its watershed, Britannica notes, its long-term level changes are smaller than those of the other Great Lakes, generally under 1 m. About 200 rivers feed it; the largest are the Nipigon and the St. Louis, and it drains to Lake Huron through the St. Marys River.

Lake Superior has fish like lake trout and whitefish.

Tiny animals live in the deep, cold water. Gulls nest on small islands. On a big island called Isle Royale, moose and wolves live in the forest.

Britannica describes the Great Lakes' wildlife. Tiny algae and crustaceans drift in the water, and the deep, cold parts are home to special animals such as the opossum shrimp and a spiny, big-headed fish called the deepwater sculpin. Lake trout, whitefish and lake herring have always been important fish here. Gulls and terns nest on small islands, and Whitefish Point in Lake Superior is a favorite place to watch migrating birds.

Lake Superior's largest island, Isle Royale, is a US national park. Moose first arrived there in the early 1900s, and wolves are thought to have crossed an ice bridge from Canada in the winter of 1948. The National Park Service watches how the two populations rise and fall together.

Britannica's account of Great Lakes life applies to Superior's deep, cold water: diatoms dominate the algae, copepods and cladocerans the animal plankton, and the deep, cold water holds species found only in the deep, cold lakes of northern latitudes, such as the opossum shrimp, the deepwater scud and the deepwater sculpin. Lake trout, whitefish, salmon and lake herring have long been important. The invasive sea lamprey entered the upper lakes in the 1930s and devastated lake trout elsewhere; a major control program reduced it, and lake trout were reintroduced in the 1960s.

On Isle Royale National Park, moose arrived in the early 1900s and have ranged from about 500 to 2,400 animals since 1980. Wolves, thought to have crossed an ice bridge from the Canadian mainland in the winter of 1948, numbered 50 in 1980 but fell to two between 2016 and 2018, affected by disease and inbreeding. The National Park Service has relocated nineteen wolves from the Great Lakes region to the island.

The Ojibwe people named the lake Gitchigumi. It means Great Water.

Later, big ships sailed across it. Storms on the lake can be wild. So people built lighthouses on the cliffs to guide the ships.

The Ojibwe called the lake Gitchigumi, Great Water, the National Park Service says. Its English name comes from the French Lac Supérieur, Upper Lake. A French explorer, Étienne Brûlé, was probably the first European to see it, in 1622, and fur traders soon followed.

From 1848, iron ore was mined near the lake, and copper and silver were mined too. The Soo Locks opened in 1855 so ships could carry iron ore down to the other Great Lakes. Storms could be fierce: a November gale in 1905 wrecked nearly 30 ships, and afterward Split Rock Lighthouse was built on a Minnesota cliff. Its light guided sailors from 1910 to 1969.

The National Park Service at Apostle Islands records that the Ojibwe called the lake Gitchigumi, 'Great Water'. Britannica derives the English name from the French Lac Supérieur ('Upper Lake'), names Étienne Brûlé (probably, in 1622) as the first European to see it, and follows Radisson and Groseilliers (1659 to 1660), Claude-Jean Allouez's charting in 1667 and the fur trade of Daniel Greysolon, sieur Du Lhut, from 1679; the region passed to British control between 1763 and 1783.

Iron ore was mined and smelted from 1848, and the Soo Locks on the St. Marys River (1855) allowed regular shipment to the lower lakes, opening the Marquette and Mesabi ranges; copper, nickel and silver were also worked. The navigation season lasts about eight months, and Duluth-Superior and Thunder Bay are major ports for ore and grain. The Minnesota Historical Society notes that a November gale in 1905 that wrecked nearly 30 ships prompted Split Rock Light Station, completed by the US Lighthouse Service in 1910, whose beacon operated until 1969.