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Water, fresh water, is, possibly, the most precious resource on earth. In some parts of the world the controversies and battles are obvious. In those areas with a seemingly endless supply, there are underlying tensions that most of the world doesn’t recognize.

Peter Annin’s The Great Lakes Water Wars takes the reader through the major legal battles regarding diversions – from 1855 to the state of the Great Lakes Compact in 2006. (It passed all legislations as of 2006.) This is a lighter read than one might expect for a book mired in complex legal settlements and international entanglements.

Annin starts with the tragedy of the Aral Sea. Some people may not see the relevance of the devastation to the central soviets of the former Soviet Union, but it is a stark reminder of what could happen to the Great Lakes basin if just diversions were mismanaged.

Once Annin brings us back to the Great Lakes, he starts with the Chicago Diversion. Back before modern waste treatment was available, the Chicago government saw fit to change the course of the Chicago River. The other states surrounding Lake Michigan were livid. Wisconsin brought this in front of the Supreme Court which handed down one of the most complicated mathematical decisions ever in U.S. history.

Chicago keeps adding new suburbs to this diversion due to their being grandfathered in under all the newer agreements. This is despite the fact that their water system is in much needed disrepair, and, unmentioned in the book, the diversion has become a major ecological threat. (The book does not go into anything other than diversions.)

The Chicago diversion caused a great deal of panic throughout the basin. Soon the states and provinces surrounding the Great Lakes pressured their federal governments to create the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty to help prevent major diversions. (Of course, during WWII there was the diversion into the Great Lakes at Thunder Bay in Ontario, Canada.)

This set up a somewhat informal system where each state’s governor had to approve any given diversion – excepting the existing Chicago diversion. If it was under a certain amount, the Canadian provinces did not have to be involved, however, if a certain threshold was not met. If that threshold were met, both federal governments would have to approve the diversion as well.

Annin takes us through a variety of approved and denied diversions and addresses the weaknesses that they highlighted in the system. The basin governments set out to correct this with The Great Lakes Charter of 1986 – which went through many revisions and challenges until the adoption of the Compact.

Annin also goes through the very interesting use of a western water law expert by those involved in creating the Compact. There was a very real disagreement from those steeped in the traditions of eastern water law about his conclusions. Eastern water law holds water as a commons, while western law holds it as a “first come, first serve” resource. This is, of course, an oversimplification, but the best explanation I can contain in a book review.

The Great Lakes Water Wars is an excellent addition to any library seeking information on the state of the Great Lakes. Though he does not address anything but diversion, diversion is a topic that deserves its own book.

More on Our Freshwater Seas.

Introduction to the lakes: An introduction to the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway by Frederick Louis Whitlark was written in 1959. It was one of the first books I found in our library system and though it is very outdated, it still has a wealth of historical information on the shipping industry of the lakes.

Whitlark goes through the commonly used ships and their routes in the mid-twentieth century. The routes taken are detailed in the book as well. When this book was written, the Mackinac Bridge was still brand new. He goes through the many lighthouses that dot the shores of the Great Lakes mentioning the (now retired) Lightship Huron that guided many a vessel through the waters surrounding Port Huron.

An entire section of the book is dedicated to the commerce that was current in the 1950s when the lakes were plied with outgoing industrial wares and raw materials. Mention is made of the then dying pleasure cruises and steamships that dominated that industry on the lakes.

Each lake (Superior, Huron, Michigan, Erie, and Ontario) and major waterway (St. Marys River, Waterlink between Erie and Huron, and Welland Ship Canal) within the basin as well as those making up the St. Lawrence Seaway (Thousand Island, Internation Rapids, Lake St. Frances, Soulanges, and Lachine) are given their own sections. Each section details common routes and the ships that ply them.

Rudimentary maps and drawings are interspersed throughout the book to aid the reader in understanding the unique geography of the area. Though mentioned, Whitlark does not spend much time on the many, many shipwrecks that make the Great Lakes considered some of the most treacherous waters in the world.

Introduction to the lakes: An introduction to the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway shows its age in such memorable quotes as:

We are quite sure that the first civilized men to see any part of the Great Lakes drainage basin were Norewegian Vikings. A replica of the DragonShip in which Leif Erikson sailed to the New World in 997 A.D. is located in Duluth. p. 158

Despite that, this is a worthy read for those interested in the history of the Great Lakes.

From time to time I will be reviewing books on The Great Lakes and Michigan as part of a series celebrating the grandeur of North America’s freshwater seas. If anyone wants to join in, I will be happy to start a read-a-long.

Freshwater Heritage: A History of Sail on the Great Lakes, 1670-1918 by Don Bamford is a delightful history from the beginnings of sailing on the Great Lakes. I am not someone familiar with sailing terminology or boating, for that matter, but this book was very accessible to even me.

Mr. Bamford takes the reader on a journey from the early discovery by the French of Lake Ontario – and their expansion into the other freshwater seas and rivers that intersect the center of the North American continent. He has us follow LaSalle’s efforts to control the waterways despite issues with his fellows and sponsors in France.

The end of French control of the Lakes allowed the British (and, eventually, the Americans) to gain a strong foothold in the Great Lakes basin. Mr. Bamford shows the importance of the technology of sailing ships that was imported from Europe for dominance on the lakes. The same shipbuilding skills that gave the USA the USS Constitution (oldest commissioned Naval vessel anywhere) allowed the United States to dominate the Great Lakes. Of course, Don Bamford also clearly illustrates that the majority of the time both the British and the Americans were in a game of avoiding each other’s ships – or trading them through capture.

One of the unique characters of Freshwater Heritage: A History of Sail on the Great Lakes, 1670-1918 was the attention given to how the challenges of building ships in the wilderness settings surrounding the Great Lakes – even where there were older settlements such as Detroit. The skill these early shipbuilders displayed cannot be underestimated. The tools used were hand tools without the electrical power we take for granted today. You can almost see the skilled tradesmen as they carved and assembled the ship’s parts into one of the majestic sailboats that dominated the lakes through the 19th century.

The last portion of Freshwater Heritage: A History of Sail on the Great Lakes, 1670-1918 is devoted to the various trades that sailing boats supported on the lakes. Starting with the fur trade that was dominated by John Astor, Bamford shows how Astor’s monopoly came to dominate. His sections on the fishing and lumber industries that decimated the fish population in the lakes and its surrounding forests brings understanding to how that happened despite its brevity. Lastly, he includes a section on the seemingly forgotten mining industry that Michigan dominated through its Upper Peninsula copper and iron mines.

Freshwater Heritage: A History of Sail on the Great Lakes, 1670-1918 is a pleasant journey through the majesty of the historical sailing vessels that dominated the freshwater seas known as the Great Lakes. It is well worth the time of any history buff or serious maritime history student. Don Bamford’s 32 years of research were well-served in this publication.