Western Lake Erie - Lake Erie and Lake Ontario (2024)

FAQs

What is the passage between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario? ›

The all-Canadian Welland Canal is the first segment of the modern Seaway to have been built. It connects two of the Great Lakes (Ontario and Erie) and forms an integral part of the deep waterway that allows large lakers and ocean vessels to navigate to and from the heart of North America.

The State of the Great Lakes 2022 Report by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy have analyzed and reported that Lake Superior and Lake Huron are rated as “good” ecosystems as Lake Michigan and Lake Ontario are rated “fair” and Lake Erie was ranked as “poor.”

Lake Ontario lies 325 ft (99 m) below Lake Erie, at the base of Niagara Falls. Niagara Falls were always an obstacle to navigation into the upper lakes until the Trent-Severn Waterway, along with the Welland and Erie canals were built to allow ships to pass around this bottleneck.

During the 1960s, Lake Erie was declared a “dead lake” due to eutrophication and pollution. The children's book, The Lorax, written by Dr. Seuss, actually included the following line referring to fish: “They will walk on their fins and get woefully weary in search of some water that isn't so smeary.

Lawrence Seaway is a deep draft waterway extending 3,700 km (2,340 miles) from the Atlantic Ocean to the head of the Great Lakes, in the heart of North America.

The Welland Canal was constructed by the Government of Canada and cuts across the Niagara Peninsula between Port Weller and Port Colborne, Ontario, a distance of 27 miles. The canal includes eight successive navigation locks which lift or lower ships 326.5 feet from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie, bypassing Niagara Falls.

Watershed's surface: 209,000 square kms. Lake Superior is the largest, cleanest, and wildest of all the Great Lakes.

Lake Superior is the world's largest freshwater lake by area (31,700 mi2 /82,100 km2). It is also the coldest and deepest of the Great Lakes, with a maximum depth of 406 meters (1,332 feet). By most measures, it is the healthiest of all the Great Lakes.

Known as one of the clearest lakes in the world, Rotomairewhenua in New Zealand is estimated to have a visibility of almost 80 meters. Blue Lake's water is so clean, its clarity is comparable to distilled water. The blue-violet hues of the lake are a natural phenomenon that only occur in such clear water.

The water in the Great Lakes is owned by the general public according to the Public Trust Doctrine. The Public Trust Doctrine is an international legal theory – it applies in both Canada and the United States, so it applies to the entirety of the Great Lakes.

What is the deepest lake in the United States? ›

Crater Lake: Deepest in the United States

Located in the Pacific Northwest, Crater Lake is the centerpiece attraction of the Crater Lake National Park in southern Oregon, about an hour's drive from Klamath Falls.

The eastern basin, which lies to the east of Erie, Pennsylvania (U.S.), and Long Point, Ontario (Canada), is the deepest and least productive of the three basins. Here, water up to 210 feet deep provides colder conditions for fish that cannot tolerate warm summer temperatures elsewhere in the lake.

Lake sturgeon in the Great Lakes can reach lengths of 10-plus feet and approach 300 pounds. The largest fish taken from Lake Erie was caught by in 1929 and weighed 216 pounds. Young sturgeon like the ones just released are protected from predators by sharp, bony plates called scutes.

While Lake Superior has not gotten any dirtier, lakes Huron and Michigan have gotten significantly clearer in the past 20 years or so, a study published earlier this year in the Journal of Great Lakes Research found. Anecdotally, scientists knew water clarity was improving in those lakes.

Evaporation continues throughout the winter. Lake Erie, as the shallowest and southernmost lake, is also the warmest and may not always freeze over. If ice cover is insignificant, the open water continues to lose vapor to the dry winter air, dropping water levels.

Welland Canal, waterway in southern Ontario, Canada, that provides navigation for large vessels between Lake Erie to the south and Lake Ontario to the north and forms an important link in the St. Lawrence Seaway.

The Niagara River, including Niagara Falls, connects Lake Erie to Lake Ontario.

Niagara Falls is center-right between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. When the ice melted, the upper Great Lakes emptied into the Niagara River, which followed the rearranged topography across the Niagara Escarpment.