(♪♪♪)
Lake Superior.
A rugged natural wonder.
Fringed by the massive hard-rock plateau
known as the Canadian Shield.
It is the greatest of the Great Lakes,
with more freshwater than all of the others combined.
By volume,
it is the largest freshwater lake in North America.
By surface area, it is the largest in the world.
An ancient haven
for some of the most astonishing cultural history
the Western Hemisphere has ever known.
At the lake,
the Ojibwa First Nations call Gitchi-Gami.
There are tales of sleeping giants,
mythological sea monsters,
and legendary sunken ships.
It is one of the world's lesser-known,
yet truly breathtaking geographic marvels.
Stark,
spectacular.
and Sacred.
It is a true North American legend.
(♪♪♪)
Lake Superior.
A massive, ancient lake roughly the size of Austria.
Lake Superior straddles the Canadian and American borders.
And shares its seemingly endless shores
with the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan,
and the Province of Ontario.
Its surface area is almost 32,000 square miles.
It is about 350 miles long,
and 160 miles wide.
Its deepest point is 1,332 feet.
As far below the surface,
as the tip of the Empire State Building
is above it.
Lake Superior shares the stage with the other four Great Lakes,
but its birth is a story all its own.
And it starts deep in the pages
of our planet's earliest geological history.
The earth formed about 4 and a 1/2 billion years ago.
In the beginning,
it was a toxic ball of gasses and molten magma.
In time, the surface cooled, then hardened,
and shrouded the young planet in a crust of igneous rock.
For billions of years,
tectonic plates formed a vast jigsaw puzzle
that remained in a state of constant flux.
Today, the seven largest tectonic plates
cover the majority of the earth's surface.
They range anywhere from 15 to 45 miles deep.
Each plate forms the base of one of the seven continents.
And each plate is made up of smaller regions
with unique geological landscapes.
Lake Superior is located on one of the most unique regions
of the North American Crustal plate.
The Canadian Shield,
also known as the Laurentian Shield,
1.7 million square miles of ancient rock.
It covers half of Canada,
part of the Northern United States,
and most of Greenland.
It is the greatest area of exposed igneous rock
on the planet.
Lake Superior sits proudly on the southern part of the shield,
and provides a breathtaking venue
for Geologists
to study the unique rock formations here.
And in doing so, they've painted a surprising picture
of what this part of the world would have looked like
billions of years ago.
>> If you think about the Himalayas
for what much of the north shore of Lake Superior
would have looked like at one time.
So with geologic time, all those mountains have disappeared.
They've all got worn down, and we're now seeing the roots,
and so this gneiss,
which is the most common rock type on the Shield,
records these very violent collisions.
Much of the Shield is--
is composed of the old roots of vast mountain chains
and the Himalayas today are an excellent example
of what large areas in the Shield would look like
where these plates were colliding with each other
and you had these incredible forces developed
where rocks were pushed down underneath each other,
melted, partially melted.
There would've been volcanoes,
and then, of course,
as the Shield is eroded down over millions, billions of years
to form the fairly level surface that we see today.
So the roots of those mountains would've been exposed.
So people come to look at the Shield
to find out what might lie below the modern-day Himalayas.
It's an ancient analog,
an ancient example of what's happening today.
>> The amount of time involved in wearing down a mountain range
the size of the Himalayas is unimaginable.
Yet, 1.1 billion years ago,
erosion consumed the mountains,
and the next chapter of Lake Superior's creation began.
>> The formation of Lake Superior is really a story
of fire and ice.
About a billion years ago,
there was a tear or a rip in the continent.
What is now North America was starting to split apart,
known as a rift,
and this is how oceans are formed.
This is how the Atlantic Ocean formed.
This rifting creates a lot of volcanic activity
so there was lots of volcanic rock
that spewed out for probably about 20 million years
onto the landscape here
and around the Lake Superior basin.
It's unique in that we can still see a lot of these rocks
frozen in time in this geological story
that goes back a billion years.
>> If the rift had not filled with lava
there would be an ocean today in the central United States.
This continental rift here is the deepest closed rift
ever discovered.
By the time this accumulation of lava stopped and hardened
it was 12 miles thick.
So heavy, that it sagged and formed a basin.
Eventually,
this large basin became home to enormous glaciers,
an icy conquest
that marked the beginning of today's Lake Superior.
>> Just imagine these ice sheets several kilometers thick,
they covered all of Canada,
so they were flowing down from the north,
they invaded southern Ontario, they got into the States
and they were such powerful, abrasive agents,
huge tools in effect
that they were capable of digging out
these enormous Great Lake basins.
And they're all a direct product,
all inherited from the last few million years
when we had glaciations.
So it tells us about the power of ice.
>> About 12,000 years ago,
these huge continental glaciers began to melt,
and the basins excavated by the glaciers were slowly exposed.
During this era,
the water levels here were as much as 500 feet higher
than they are today.
The last of the surrounding glaciers
melted 10,000 years ago.
Lake Superior overflowed,
and drained into the lower great lakes.
Its water level dropped dramatically to 200 feet below
today's level.
When the glaciers melted,
an enormous weight was lifted from atop the basin,
like removing a brick from atop a sponge.
The lake's basin slowly bounced back,
lifting the lake's water levels with it.
Finally, about 5,000 years ago,
the Lake Superior that we know today came to be.
The "failed ocean" is a rare geological wonder
that would have been hidden forever
by the ocean it could have become.
Today, the continental rift is more than 1,200 miles long.
It runs from Lake Superior to Oklahoma.
Deep and ancient,
it is a snapshot of geological history
laid bare for all to see.
>> As a geologist the north shore of Lake Superior,
it's fascinating because of the topography.
You've got these tall cliffs
just dropping straight into the lake.
The rocks are very varied,
and, as you go to the west, they get older and older,
and the various rocks that you see,
the granites, the sandstones, the greenstone belts,
basically tell us about the violence of geologic history.
And these huge collisions between continents
and the trapping of an ancient seafloor.
So it's a pretty violent story.
>> A violent story with a beautiful result.
The softest rock type
is a blend of natural materials compacted together.
It's called sediment, or sandstone.
Over millennia,
much harder rock intruded into the softer rock
to create some true geological masterpieces.
>> An igneous rock is one that's been produced
by volcanic activity,
and some are the product of actual volcanic eruptions
at the earth's surface, erupted rocks.
And then there are other igneous rocks
which never made it to the surface
and they're said to be intrusive
because they're pushed up into surrounding rocks.
And perhaps that's one of the most striking features
of the north shore of Lake Superior
because a lot of the rocks were intruded as igneous rocks
and they form what we call sills
which are horizontal intrusions.
So if you imagine your fingers
and the hot magma being forced in between the layers.
And what this does is-- is produce a sandwich
where you have relatively soft rock, hard igneous rock
on the north shore of Lake Superior.
>> One of the best-known rock formations
is the Sleeping Giant.
He has rested here for millions of years,
near the Canadian City of Thunder Bay
on the Sibley Peninsula.
In the aptly named, Sleeping Giant Provincial Park.
This incredible formation of rocks
illustrates the geological history here.
Through the ages,
liquid magma was pushed up into the soft sandstone.
In some areas,
this magma leveled off in a horizontal layer.
It hardened and became igneous rock,
which takes much longer to erode.
The elevated mounds of the Sleeping Giant
are actually areas where layers of igneous rock act as a cap,
protecting the sandstone that lies beneath.
The result is a truly one-of-a-kind formation of rock.
Sleeping Giant.
This unmistakable silhouette of a slumbering goliath
looms large in the ancient folklore
of the Ojibwe First Nations,
one of the most populous tribes on the continent.
The Ojibwe are an essential part of the 12,000-year history
of human settlements here.
Their own histories tell of a migration
from the eastern part of North America
to the Great Lakes region.
The precise year that the Ojibwe settled on Lake Superior
is not known.
The first mention of the Ojibwe in European recorded histories
was in 1640 from the Jesuit missionaries
who travelled here with French explorers.
The Ojibwe hold an intimate spiritual connection
to this place.
This astonishing rock formation is steeped in folklore.
According to the Ojibwe this is Nanabushu,
an ancient hero born to a human mother and spirit father.
One Ojibwa First Nations legend
believed to have originated in the 1950s,
recounts how Nanabushu was turned to stone by the West Wind
when the secret location of a rich silver mine
on the Sibley Peninsula was disclosed to the white man.
Today, the form of the Sleeping Giant
is clear for all to see:
arms folded across a barrel chest,
as if carefully laid to rest.
>> From this view,
the Sleeping Giant head is to my left.
The Adam's apple is the next prominent feature
and then the chest and the knees.
You can see the Sleeping Giant from a number of angles
and from very far away and it often is--
is thought of as a protective-type symbol
and a very welcoming symbol for those who had had that
massive journey across the largest freshwater lake
in the world.
>> As with many First Nations legends,
the story of the Sleeping Giant is a morality tale,
told to add meaning to actual events.
In fact, there was a great deal of silver hidden here.
Where Sibley Peninsula ends
there are tiny islands and islets, barely visible.
In 1868, prospectors found pure silver
deep below the surface of one of these islets,
an islet no larger than 80 feet by 100 feet.
And 8 feet above the water level.
But that didn't stop ambitious prospectors
from getting their hands on the silver.
From 1869 to 1884,
mining shafts were sunk deep into this tiny rock islet.
Break waters and docks were built around it,
coal-burning pumps were installed
to keep water out of the shafts.
And in that short time,
$3.2 million in silver was mined.
But in 1884, disaster struck the mine;
there was a missed shipment of coal.
Without the coal, the pumps stopped working,
and the shafts flooded.
The mine was abandoned and never re-opened.
Today, the Giant is a popular spot for hikers.
The cliffs found here tower at almost 1,000 feet.
They are the largest in the province of Ontario.
The Sleeping Giant is not actually visible
from inside the park itself.
But that doesn't stop hiker from trying to reach
the top of the giant.
A grueling 12-mile hike that can take up to eight hours.
At the south end of the Sibley Peninsula,
sits another beautiful geological creation,
The Sea Lion.
One billion years ago,
liquid magma pushed its way to the surface here.
It cooled and hardened,
and transformed into igneous rock,
much harder than the sandstone it penetrated.
Over the millennia, the sandstone eroded,
the igneous rock did not.
And this incredible formation was left behind,
5 feet thick, 25 feet high,
it extends 50 feet into the lake.
According to Ojibwa Legend,
before Nanabijou was turned into a Sleeping Giant
cast from stone, he had many companions.
One of them was a sea lion.
But not just any sea lion.
Nagochee had the wings of an eagle,
and the feet of a duck.
As it is told, Nanabijou went on a long journey.
He brought Nagochee,
but forgot his other companion, the Thunderbird.
When they returned,
the Thunderbird created a storm so vicious.
It broke off one of Nagochee's wings.
He tumbled from the sky, as did his master.
Thinking Nagochee had failed him.
Nanabijou turned him to stone as punishment.
And there he stands to this day,
waiting for his master to return.
In the 1800s, the formation had a head,
and it became known simply as The Sea Lion.
Sitting patiently, looking out over Perry Bay.
The head has since eroded away.
Yet it remains a must-see destination
for hikers on the Sibley Peninsula.
The Geological masterpieces of Lake Superior
reach beyond its shores.
40 miles north-east of Thunder Bay
and Sleeping Giant Provincial Park
is Ouimet Canyon.
Over tens of thousands of years,
glacial ice, running water, and brutal weather
carved out all the softer sedimentary rock
from this spot,
leaving behind towering igneous rock walls,
350 feet high,
2 miles long,
and a breathtaking chasm 500 feet wide.
>> Ouimet Canyon certainly is
a significant ecological representation
on the landscape here,
as well as a quite interesting and profound experience
when you look over the edge.
People are often surprised at just how big and wide it is.
Just because of its size and grandeur,
it really is quite amazing,
and it's something that you don't see very often.
>> Here in Ouimet Canyon is another sacred site
for the Ojibwa First Nations.
This is the Indian Head.
According to ancient Ojibwa legend,
it was once a giant named Ommet,
who helped the Ojibwe spirit Nanabijou
to raise mountains from the earth and create lakes.
Ommet fell in love with Nanabijou's daughter, Naiomi.
One day, Ommet was moving a mountain.
A peak broke off the mountain,
and struck Naiomi, killing the girl.
Fearing retribution from her father,
Ommet laid her in a shallow lake
and covered her with a rock shield.
Nanabijou sensed his daughter there.
So he caught a thunder-bolt, cast it down,
and split the rock.
There he found his daughter.
He buried her there in what is now the base of Ouimet Canyon.
And to punish Ommet, he turned him to stone,
and forced him to watch over her grave for eternity.
Today, the floor of the canyon is a protected area.
The base of this canyon is a climatological anomaly.
Air is stagnant, and there is little sunlight.
It is icy-cold year-round.
These conditions nurture an extreme microclimate.
Arctic and sub-Arctic vegetation
normally found about 600 miles north,
such as alpine woodsia,
Clinton's bulrush and saxifrage thrive here.
(♪♪♪)
Ouimet Canyon also provides a picturesque sanctuary
to the world's fastest animal.
The peregrine falcon.
These winged carnivores have the incredible ability
to dive-bomb their prey
at speeds of up to 200 miles an hour.
In the mid 1960s,
DDT poisoning eradicated this remarkable species
from the province of Ontario.
In 1977, a recovery project was introduced
by the provincial government.
Over 20 years,
600 young peregrine falcons raised in captivity
were released into the wild.
Today, their numbers have rebounded all over Ontario.
Due in part to protected areas like Ouimet Canyon,
where high perches and abundant prey
create an ideal habitat
for these magnificent nesting pairs.
(♪♪♪)
The protected areas of Lake Superior
are a spectacular refuge for woodland creatures,
but also for ancient human influence.
Lake Superior Provincial Park is no exception.
Located on the east shore,
it is home to the awe inspiring Agawa Rock.
For thousands of years,
the stormy waters of Lake Superior
have relentlessly pounded this 100-foot-high sheer rock face.
For the Ojibwe First Nations
and other tribes from thousands of years before,
the furious booming sound made by waves
filling the fissures was a thing of wonder,
a supernatural force sent from the spirit world.
This was, and is a sacred place.
A dangerous place.
Ancient peoples paid their respects,
and used pictographs to warn others of potential danger.
>> Generations of Ojibwe have painted images,
red ochre images,
representing the stories of their life here
along Lake Superior.
It's a very exposed site.
Right at the edge of the lake this cliff face.
You can only get out when the lake is very calm
because it doesn't take much of a wave to come in there
and it makes it quite amazing
that the images have lasted for any length of time.
>> For the paint itself,
the Ancient Ojibwa used hematite rock.
These strikingly colored rocks are high in minerals
such as iron.
They were crushed to a powder,
and mixed with fish oil or bear grease to make a paste
that fused to the rock on which they were painted.
>> They probably painted there for generations,
for maybe thousands of years.
But what we see today
is estimated to be 150 to 400 years old.
It gets the weathering from waves, from--
they can be covered in ice,
and they're also exposed to the-- to the sun.
So it's quite remarkable that anything's lasted
as long as it has.
>> Some images are obvious,
like this canoe,
and this horse and rider.
(♪♪♪)
And some, not so obvious.
>> Perhaps one of the most unusual images there
is the one known as Mishbashu, the spirit of the lake.
Mishbashu has sometimes been called the underwater panther
or the horned lynx and so it has those--
that spined back and those horns indicating power.
And if not shown the proper respect
or given the proper offerings
then Mishbashu could simply lash its tail
and whip up a storm and may capsize canoes.
>> The ancient Ojibwa who drew these
have long returned to the spirit world,
but Mishbashu still lurks in the form of dead calm waters,
and rogue waves that can strike without warning
against walls like these.
This is Old Woman Bay.
Another ancient and familiar landmark,
here in Lake Superior Provincial Park.
Ancient First Nations peoples mined copper here,
as many as 5,000 years ago.
Today, this area is known and loved,
not for copper,
but for its rugged weather and spectacular scenery.
>> Well, they say there's a face in the cliff at Old Woman Bay.
Everybody sees it in a-- in a different place
and probably has a different connection
and we don't know exactly where that original story came from.
I see it at a different place when I'm on the shore
than when I'm out on the lake
and I've talked to other people
and it's interesting to try to point out
where you think you see the-- the face of the Old Woman Bay.
>> In Old Woman Bay,
one of Lake Superior's most ominous features is laid bare.
Its weather.
The lake is so large
that it moderates the climate around it.
The amount of water in the lake is almost incomprehensible,
three quadrillion gallons.
Enough to cover North and South America
in one foot of water.
The average water temperature is 40 degrees.
As a result,
weather on and near the lake is unpredictable,
and often completely different
than the weather in the rest of the region.
>> At Old Woman Bay those cliffs are a very dramatic,
powerful backdrop
for the changing conditions we see on Lake Superior.
Getting those wisps of fog that-- that come and go.
They could be there one minute and you can hardly see the cliff
and the next minute it's gone.
I've seen some wild storms down there
with the waves crashing many meters up that cliff.
Ice that's formed along the shore there.
So it really is a very powerful place
that kind of captures the whole power
and changing conditions that we see
all along the lakeshore here.
>> Tens of millions of Canadians and Americans
live in The Great Lakes region,
most in the thriving urban centers
that dot the lakes.
And all are affected by changing weather conditions.
The lake effect is one of the most commonly used
meteorological terms.
But you have to live here to understand its meaning.
Large bodies of water play an essential role
in altering existing weather systems.
>> Lake Superior certainly dominates the landscape here
and it affects everything.
Every story about this place can be tied back to the lake.
It's known as a weather-maker.
It's the largest freshwater lake in surface area in the world,
and, because of our latitude,
the size of the lake, the depth, the coldness,
this lake probably more than any other has a real impact
on our weather.
>> It may appear calm and temperate now,
but winter hits hard along the shores of Lake Superior.
On the Canadian side, the largest city is Thunder Bay.
The average annual snowfall there is 74 inches.
>> Along the eastern shore of Lake Superior
we get some of the highest snowfall in Ontario.
We get about a meter on the ground.
I've seen as high as a meter six,
which is-- which is my height,
so that's a lot of snow on the ground.
That's why moose is more common than white-tailed deer
to get along in the snow.
>> 74 inches of snow is nothing to scoff at,
unless you live in Hancock, Michigan.
It sits just across the lake to the south,
on a peninsula that reaches north into the lake.
There, a typical annual snowfall is 208 inches.
That's 17 feet.
Almost three times as much as Thunder Bay.
It's an incredible difference.
But it's no surprise.
With such a vast surface area,
Superior's lake effect is dramatic.
But what's remarkable about the weather system
in this part of the world
is that even if Lake Superior wasn't here
the weather would be tumultuous.
There is a unique vortex of seasonal patterns here;
moist warm air blows up from the Gulf of Mexico.
Cold Arctic air gusts down from the North.
The two fronts collide at Lake Superior,
and when they do,
air pressure changes, winds rise,
and storms are unleashed.
Add to this,
the tremendous volume of water in Lake Superior,
and things get really complicated.
The Lake is so enormous that it regulates the temperature
in the surrounding region.
Local temperatures fluctuate from minus 20 to 90 degrees.
With a core temperature
that hovers around 40 degrees year-round,
Lake Superior warms the winter air.
And when it does, the air rises,
and brings evaporated lake water with it.
New clouds form,
or existing clouds become saturated.
This increases the energy in the pressure system.
Winds rise and waves follow suit.
In the summer, the reverse is in effect.
Lake water is cooler than the air above it.
The cooled air stays low,
and helps keep the surface of the lake calm,
even while the winds howl 1,500 feet above the surface.
For the seafarers that make their living
on the Great Lakes waterways,
this effect, is much preferred to the alternative.
>> So, Lake Superior is a-- is a real weather-maker.
This large body of water,
the prevailing weather comes across it
and that really varies from season to season.
In the spring, it's like a huge cold sink,
and so often it absorbs some of the heat and energy
as weather systems come across the lake.
Fog is common early in the-- in the year,
especially when the-
when we get some rain or moisture in the air,
the lake is so cold that you get condensation
and this wispy fog.
And then all summer,
the lake is absorbing heat and energy,
and it has the reverse role in the fall.
As the weather systems cross the lake it intensifies them
and that's where you get the biggest storms.
Lake Superior's famous for its gales of November.
>> Each of the Great Lakes is connected to the Atlantic Ocean
through the St. Lawrence River.
It's the largest surface water system
on the planet.
Running 2,038 miles from Duluth Superior Port
in the state of Minnesota
all the way to the Atlantic Ocean
with 509 ports along the way.
Today, 4,000 ships pass through this seaway every year,
along with several billion dollars worth of commodities.
A lot rides on the functionality of this seaway.
And for the seafarers that sail it
the ride can get pretty wild.
The dramatic and sudden pressure changes
can make for terrible storms at sea.
There are regular reports of waves higher than 20 feet
crashing into pilot-house windows.
There are 550 known shipwrecks;
at least 350 of them still rest on the bottom of Lake Superior.
One shipwreck is more known than the rest,
the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
At the time it was launched in 1958,
it was the first ship ever built to the maximum size allowed
on the St. Lawrence Seaway,
730 feet long and 75 feet wide.
For an ore freighter, it was unusually luxurious,
with a lounge, two dining rooms for the crew,
and even state rooms for occasional passengers.
For 17 years it carried iron ore from mines near Duluth Minnesota
to Detroit and other great lakes ports.
On November 10, 1975,
a vicious storm ravaged the lake.
Hurricane-force winds took the modern freighter down.
Despite its having
the most up-to-date required safety equipment
of the time.
The National Transportation Safety Board determined
that there was a sudden massive flooding
of the ballast tanks and cargo hold.
All 29 crew members died.
The ships' final resting place,
530 feet underwater on the lakebed,
snapped in two.
The ship was popularized by the Canadian musician,
Gordon Lightfoot.
His song, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
helped cement Lake Superior's place
in the cultural fabric of North America.
On the eastern fringe of Superior,
a tranquil inlet offers protection
from the rough waves on the lake.
This is Gargantua Harbor.
Fishermen took advantage of this safe haven
around the turn of the 20th century.
In the 1930s and '40s,
this port was a busy hub for fishing and logging.
After a period of negligence
it has re-emerged as a popular destination
for visitors to Lake Superior Provincial Park.
>> Gargantua is a favorite spot for a lot of people,
including myself.
It's a great access for hiking or paddling,
and it is one of the more remote locations
along the eastern shore here.
Gargantua is well known for its cobble beach.
These beautiful rounded cobbles have been--
they're remnants of all the types of rocks
that are found around this area,
that glaciers grounded them up and re-deposited them,
and then, just like a giant stone polishing machine,
the forces of water,
ancient rivers that flowed through here
and then that weathering that continues
with the waves of Lake Superior,
like a giant stone polisher,
have kept these rocks rounded and smoothed.
So from the Gargantua access area
it is a spot where you can hike and start, or paddle,
and actually see some of those features created
when the mid-continent rift was happening.
The type of rock,
the dark basalts that came out in the volcanoes
that formed some really unusual features.
(♪♪♪)
>> In the Great Lakes region shipwrecks are not uncommon.
But seeing one frozen in time is...
...here in Gargantua Harbor is the shipwreck of the Columbus.
A popular sight for visitors here.
>> This was a boat that-- that caught fire
and was cut loose from the dock,
so it wouldn't have burned the small fishing village
that was there at the time.
It's been in fairly shallow water,
and it's been there for over 100 years,
and its well preserved
because of the cold waters of Lake Superior
and because it's a protected harbor.
>> In Lake Superior, time stands still...
...for hundred,
thousands,
and millions of years,
and yet, it continues to evolve.
(♪♪♪)
This is Sand River.
(♪♪♪)
It brings sand and other deposits
into Lake Superior.
The ancient Ojibwa people used this magnificent waterway
2,000 years ago for seasonal migration.
Today, it's cherished for its hiking and canoeing.
It weaves together,
the past, present, and future of this place
with natural unbridled strength.
(♪♪♪)
The birth of an ocean, frozen in time.
Unparalleled geological wonders.
The largest freshwater lake in the world,
Lake Superior.
Inherited, and defined by the Ancient Ojibwa First Nations.
Spirits in stone...
...monolithic legends...
...a raw and untamed spiritual sanctuary.
Here, in the heart of North America.
(♪♪♪)