Is Lake Ontario Even a Great Lake?

Youngstown, N.Y. — Everyone in Michigan knows and loves the Great Lakes. These inland seas form the boundaries of the state itself, from the Lake Huron side to the Lake Michigan side, to Lake Superior cascading across the boundaries of the Upper Peninsula. Even Lake Erie, a formerly fetid industrial swamp, is enjoying a new renaissance.

There’s only one Great Lake that has nothing to do with Michigan—Lake Ontario. Luckily for Michiganders, it’s the worst lake of the five. Some are saying it’s not even a truly Great Lake at all.

Lake Ontario is best described as a tributary of the Niagara River, a sort of collection pool for water downstream of Niagara Falls. All of the other Great Lakes are connected, flowing into each other, at relatively the same height above sea level.

You notice it immediately on charts of the great lakes. Lake Ontario is 200 feet lower than the rest of them, after the waterfall. It’s the last stop before the water flows down the St. Lawrence, and out to the Atlantic Ocean.

In many ways, it’s disconnected from the other lakes. Just a big puddle, standing water that slowly drains out to the ocean through a sieve.

Lake Ontario, of course, is named after the Canadian province of Ontario, which surrounds its northern shores. Unlike the other Great Lakes, it’s so narrow that on a clear day, you can even see Toronto looming across the Lake from the southern shore in New York.

The greater Toronto area dominates the lake, with only one minor city in New York along the opposite shore. Toronto is a cursed land, filled with Canadians and a strange mix of modern and wannabe gothic architecture. Steep gabled roofs and ads for injectable HIV medication form the oppressive Toronto aesthetic.

One wonders: Did Toronto sully Lake Ontario, or does Lake Ontario hold a more ancient curse? A dark spell left over it, cast by primordial tribes forgotten to history, which led to the wretched state of Canada? One can only speculate.

Lake Ontario, of course, has by far the worst beaches of all the Great Lakes. They’re seldom found, actually, just a scattered few along the shoreline, with rocky sand, weathered sticks and rotting fish bones.

Even Lake Huron beaches mog Lake Ontario beaches, and that’s saying something. Lake Michigan beaches are so superior that it’s not even worth comparing the two. Lake Superior beaches stand apart for their sparse isolation, incomparable to the Canadian metropolis dominating Ontario.

Something happens to the water once it cascades down Niagara Falls. No longer the pristine, barely touched waters of Lake Superior, the bluer than blue water of Lake Michigan on a summer day. It loses its vigor, its distinct life force.

You might say that Lake Ontario is the worst Great Lake, because it isn’t touched by Michigan, and that would be true. But Michigan is better off for its absence, with four of its own lakes that are vastly superior to the wayward fifth.

Let the New Yorkers and Canadians keep their lake, knowing it’s the worst of the five. If we were serious about geography, we’d strip Lake Ontario of its “Great” title after all. It would simply be the Four Great Lakes, the Michigan lakes, and, well, that other one that we don’t really care to mention. That’s how it works now anyways.