Big Sea Shining Water

 I am interested in the big inland sea near my house so I read Big Sea Shining Water; The Story of Lake Superior by Norman K. Risjord. This author reads like James Michener except way more succinct. If a drop of rain falls on the beach near Canal Park in Duluth today, it will reach the mouth of the Saint Mary's river on approximately October 12, 2421. The sky looks like rain might just fall down there. For all I know it's raining down there right now. Duluth has three temperate zones so weather changes as I move up and down the hill. This book has one chapter devoted to shipping wrecks which is why I have been humming the Gordon Lightfoot classic song that was on the radio all the time back in 1973 and 1974. A chapter near the end is about ecological changes such as the sea lamprey. I have seen pictures of a sea lamprey and I think the scariest Halloween costume would be a sea lamprey. From the year I was born until my tenth birthday, the volume of fish harvest in Lake Superior fell by 90% because of the sea lamprey. In the 1970's they found hazardous chemicals in Lake Superior. One researcher was on a boat near Isle Royale. A park ranger told him of the inland lakes on Isle Royale. The researcher went fishing there thinking this inland lake with a rock bottom and no connection to Lake Superior would be pristine water for fish. Instead he found more toxic chemicals instead of less. Acid rain was a big topic forty years ago. Are those toxic chemicals coming from Russia and China? We may never know the answer to that. I like how the author listed museums around the lake to learn more about shipping or taconite or Ojibway or wild rice but I wish he included more details so I could know whether to bother going. Otherwise I thought this was a great read.