Why Aren’t Huron and Michigan One Lake?

The Straits of Mackinac are too wide to split them, which means Superior is technically the second-largest great lake
Satellite photo of the Mackinac Strait

Every Michigan kid learns the abbreviation HOMES for the five Great Lakes: Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior. But if you had never learned that and saw an unmarked map, wouldn’t you think there were only four Great Lakes?

In hydrological terms, Lakes Huron and Michigan are a single body of water, theoretically bisected by the Straits of Mackinac. They have the same elevation, same species, and are in most ways ecologically similar. If a lake is simply a sizable body of water surrounded by land, just one surrounds most of the Lower Peninsula. Dividing the lakes at the straits violates the definition.

The waters of Lake Michigan flow gradually eastward into Lake Huron, then down to Lake St. Clair, Lake Erie, and Lake Ontario on their way to the ocean. From Huron on down, the big waters are all connected by streams, but the straits of Mackinac are no stream.

If this body of water was called, say, the Huron-Michigan Lake, it would be larger in surface area than Lake Superior, and the Yoopers wouldn’t be able to take so much pride in their big freezing lake.

We only have HOMES because of a historical naming convention. French explorer Jean Nicolet was the first European to glimpse Lake Michigan in the 1630s. He and his compatriots called it a number of things: Grand Lac, Lac St. Joseph, Lac de Puans, and—horrifyingly—Lac des Illinois, because they used the lake to reach the Illinois tribe. Other French settlers later settled on “Michigan” after the Ojibwe word “mishigami,” which means “great water.” 

At over 14 million acres, great it is, but greater still it would be if we added on the nearly 15 million acres of Lake Huron, named “Lac des Hurons” by French explorers after the Native Americans who lived on its shores. 

Having two names, for what is essentially the same body of water, is the result of the early explorers of the Michigan wilderness having very little idea of the geography they were traveling through.

Take this 1656 map drawn by Nicolas Sanson:

Some explorers of the mid-17th century clearly were under the impression that all three of the largest Great Lakes met at some central point around Mackinac Island. It’d be mighty hard to point to where you live on the map if our state looked like this. The French were woefully wrong, but if these lakes were tight, fast-flowing channels, then separate names for Huron and Michigan might make sense. 

But alas, our modern maps show clearly that we have one massive body of water enveloping our Lower Peninsula and hugging the southern shore of our northern peninsula.

Without a river connecting them, Huron and Michigan are a single lake. Pretty much every government agency and scientific researcher goes out of their way to say so. 

Teaching a classroom of fourth graders the acronym HOES would definitely derail the day’s lesson plans, but it would be more accurate.

Mark Naida is managing editor of Michigan Enjoyer.

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