Great Lakes Trivia Quiz

Answer: Lake Michigan

Lake Michigan is entirely within the United States of America, and is bordered by the upper and lower peninsulas of Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois and Indiana. The most populous cities (for each state) on Lake Michigan are Traverse City for Michigan, Milwaukee for Wisconsin, Chicago for Illinois and Gary for Indiana.

Answer: Lake Superior

Due to its size and depth, Lake Superior is deep and large enough to have seiches, which resemble tides. Lake Superior is more of an inland sea than a lake. Seiches are actually formed by winds and weather causing the water levels in different parts of the lake to fluctuate.

Answer: More than 10,000

The Great Lakes' last major change was when the Wisconsin Ice Age retreated about 12,000 years ago. These largest glacial lakes in the world have existed in their current form for about the past 3,000 years.

Answer: Lake Erie

Bessie is the 'monster' that inhabits Lake Erie. First sighted in 1973, it has been described as being 30 to 40 feet long and kind of snakey. It may be as elusive as the Loch Ness monster, with only grainy photographs of it being offered as evidence.

Answer: Lake Huron

Lake Huron comes is slightly larger (60,000 kmē) than Lake Michigan (3rd place - 58,000 kmē) and is significantly smaller than Lake Superior (1st place - 82,000 kmē). Georgian Bay is a large bay that protrudes northeast from Lake Huron into Ontario, Canada.

Answer: Lake Ontario

Michigan touches the other four main Great Lakes: Lake Michigan (of course), Lake Superior, Lake Huron and Lake Erie. You need to pass through the Niagara River in New York State to get to Lake Ontario.

Answer: Lake Superior

Lake Superior is huge by all measures. It runs 350 miles east-west and up to 160 miles north-south. Using and sonar and mathematical calculations, scientists have determined its volume to be 2900 cubic miles. This is more than all the other Great Lakes combined.

Answer: 35000

The Great Lakes have the largest collection of freshwater islands in the world. This is mostly due to the glacial activity in the area over 10,000 years ago. Lake Huron alone has an estimated 30,000 islands.

Answer: Edmund Fitzgerald

The song "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" tells a stylized story of the final voyage of this ship. The Edmund Fitzgerald was transporting taconite iron ore from Superior, Wisconsin to a steel mill near Detroit, Michigan. Leaving on November 9, 1975, the ship succumbed to a storm of near hurricane strength that contributed to its sinking on November 10, 1975.

Gordon Lightfoot did once state that the melody of the song was "just an old Irish folk song; an old Irish dirge."

Answer: Cleveland, Ohio

In a situation that contributed to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency a few years later, on June 22, 1969 the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland caught fire due to to an oil slick being set ablaze by a spark from a passing car. It was not the first or last time it caught on fire.