A Tribute To Lake Michigan
We love the lake!
I’m a tour guide in Chicago and a few years back I was walking with a young couple from Austin, TX. These two, enamored with Chicago, asked question after question:
Which is the tallest building in the city? (Sears To…um, Willis Tower)
Why don’t you put ketchup on your hot dogs? (Because the Chicago dog is a finely tuned machine and you wouldn’t put ketchup on a Stradivarius now would you?)
Which is the best deep dish? (Malnati’s. Fight me)
And then, the fella asked a question that has rocked me to my core ever since…
What is your relationship to the lake?
I may have stared at this lovely couple from Texas for a good 60 seconds as I rumbled through my Rolodex of words that would accurately describe our relationship to the lake.
I believe my answer was to blurt out a little too loudly, “WE LOVE THE LAKE!”
How big is the lake?
The lake is HUGE. It is the fifth-largest lake in the world. It is the greatest (IMHO) of the five great lakes. It is the 2nd largest by volume and 3rd largest by surface area. You can’t see to the other side, so it feels BIG.
When I was showing the lake to two young ladies from Miami, it went something like this:
“It looks like the ocean.”
“I know! But it’s the lake!”
“It really looks like the ocean.” This one with side-eye as if I was actually lying that it was a lake and not the ocean.
Lake Michigan is the most American of the great lakes because it is the only one that resides solely in America’s borders. We share the lake with Wisconsin, Michigan, and Indiana and we have an annual Hunger Games-type battle to see who gets it that year. Nah, I’m just kidding, we all know Chicago owns Lake Michigan.
The word “Michigan” most likely means “great water.” So yeah, this baby was great from the beginning.
What is the history of it?
The land by the lake was originally inhabited by Winnebago, Miami, and Sauk Indians. In the 1600s the white man found it and saw the potential that our rivers and lake had. Upon arriving at this land in 1682, Rene-Robert Cavalier, Sieur de LaSalle wrote:
This will be the gate of empire, this the seat of commerce. Everything invites to action. The typical man who will grow up here must be an enterprising man. Each day as he rises he will exclaim, ‘I act, I move, I push.”
Lake Michigan became a part of a major trade route when New York built the Erie Canal. Chicago and its lake were put on the map for being a stopping point between New York and New Orleans. It was our lifeline then.
It is our lifeline still. We get our drinking water from Lake Michigan, always have. Back in the olden days, the Chicago River used to flow into Lake Michigan. When the Chicago stockyards happened, that offal mess was dumped in the river and sent to the lake to become our drinking water.
To prevent that slow-moving ick from heading into the lake, this city played God and in 1900 reversed the flow of the Chicago River so it flows away from Lake Michigan. It still flows the wrong way today.
Do you swim in the lake?
This is the biggest disconnect between the locals and the visitors to our city. This is a beach town. We know this. Tourists do not know this. I’ve never met a tourist who mentioned they brought their bathing suit to go to the beach. Yet, on a warm and sunny weekend, that is where most of us are.
So then the answer is YES! Oh my gosh yes we swim in the lake. WE LOVE THE LAKE. If you head on over to North Ave Beach (pre-pandemic), you would wonder if you were in Cali or Chicago. There’s swimming, playing volleyball, making eyes at, drinking by, smoking by, and getting crowded in by our beloved beaches.
The lakefront beaches span 26 miles from one end of the city to the other, so you don’t have to go downtown to one of the fancy beaches. If you want a quiet afternoon at the beach, just go to the beach in your neighborhood.
Some of us (ahem) “swim swim” in the lake. Some July morning I’ll wake up with hot anxieties at 4:30 AM, grab my bag, and walk 5 blocks to the lake. The sun will just be coming up over the horizon, the other early-nerds are the only ones there. I’ll pop off my shoes and hop into the clear, cold water of Lake Michigan and just…swim.
I have been in the earth, a part of it. It’s invigorating
How does it affect the weather?
The lake has moods as we all do. Some days it’s rough and all over the place. Some days it’s so still it doesn’t look like it’s moving at all. Some days it’s a sandy brown color and some days it’s crystal clear and you can watch the fish swim in it.
In the winter the lake is dark and brooding and moody.
In the summer it’s so clear you can see right through to the fish and the rocks and the moss.
In the winter “cooler by the lake” is your enemy. In the summer “cooler by the lake” is the greatest phrase you’ve ever heard. On hot steamy days when the corn is cooking in its husks out on the prairie, here in Chicago we can be 10 degrees cooler and a lot less humid.
And sometimes that sucker will just pop over everything holding it in and cause great havoc, like the storm of February 2, 2011, when the lake and the snow came over LSD and trapped cars for hours.
What is LSD? (And where do I get some?)
Lake Shore Drive extends 16 miles from north to south and follows the lake the whole way. Driving down LSD is one of the great experiences of life. Cruising, windows open, smelling the lake, watching it shimmer like its filled with diamonds.
When we were young and just getting drivers licenses we would scream down LSD, a total rite of passage. Thirty years later, during COVID, my husband and I would take early morning car rides down LSD, for the sheer joy of it.
What only some know, the some that live here and have chosen to live here, is that Chicago has a bike path that runs from one end of the city to the other. Unbroken. A public path and park and beach that spans the entire 26 miles.
Do you know what other cities build on precious lakefront space like that? Hotels. Private beaches. Casinos.
But not us! There is no part of the lake in Chicago that is privately owned. It’s all ours. For us. And we protect it with our lives. George Lucas tried to build his private museum on our lakefront and then we successfully told George Lucas to go take a flying leap off of someone else’s pier.
Not only are there no hotels or private land messing up our lakefront, but there is also nothing really. We bike it. We walk it. We enjoy it. We let it be.
What is YOUR relationship to the lake?
My mother brought her four young children to the lake every day while we were growing up. With our beach passes clipped to our towels, we ate peanut butter and sand sandwiches.
As a tween, we spent every day at the lake in the summer. Five or six of us would ride our bikes to Elder Lane Beach. We’d swim and make up songs and then about noon or so, convince one of the others of us to ride to the White Hen to go get snacks. We stayed all day, only heading home when it was time for dinner.
When I was a teen my father moved to downtown Chicago. He was a walker, I think that’s where I get my love for it. Dad would more often than not, walk us to the beach. We’d walk up and down it for miles. but this time it was the city beach and that was cool enough for me.
I’ve fallen in love by the lake, I’ve broken up by the lake. I’ve cried at the lake, I’ve laughed at the lake. I’ve immersed myself in it and sat by its trees. I’ve grieved by it, I’ve eaten by it, drank by it, thrown up by it, almost died in it, and have had the most spiritual moments of my life by it.
And that’s why the fella’s question, “What is your relationship to the lake?” threw me off because I could KEEP WRITING. I could keep writing this Medium piece until it took over the whole site. There’s so much I left off.
There aren’t enough words, there aren’t enough Medium stories, there aren’t enough letters or nearly enough time to tell you what our relationship to the lake is, so we’ll settle for my original answer…
WE LOVE THE LAKE!
