The Great Lakes Are Hiding Something Nobody Talks About
Unseen Canada
175,573 views
The Great Lakes look permanent — five enormous bodies of freshwater that have shaped Canada and the United States for thousands of years. But beneath the surface is a much stranger story. There is a working salt mine beneath Lake Huron, an ancient caribou hunting site buried under nearly 40 metres of water, a mysterious circular structure on the floor of Lake Ontario, thousands of shipwrecks, and a river near Chicago that engineers deliberately forced to run backwards more than a century ago.
This documentary explores 30 remarkable facts about the Great Lakes, moving from unusual geography and hidden places to the much bigger question of who actually controls the water — and what happens when some of it permanently leaves the basin.
What This Video Documents:
CANADA'S HIDDEN GREAT LAKES GEOGRAPHY
From Manitoulin Island — the world's largest freshwater island, containing more than 100 lakes of its own — to Georgian Bay's enormous freshwater archipelago and Canada's surprisingly southern shoreline near Point Pelee.
THE RIVER ENGINEERS FORCED TO RUN BACKWARDS
In 1900, Chicago opened the Sanitary and Ship Canal and reversed the Chicago River, sending water away from Lake Michigan toward the Mississippi River and ultimately the Gulf of Mexico. The diversion still exists today.
A MASSIVE MINE BENEATH LAKE HURON
At Goderich, Ontario, workers descend roughly 1,800 feet underground into an enormous salt mine extending beneath Lake Huron. Trucks are dismantled, lowered underground in pieces, rebuilt below the surface, and may never see daylight again.
THE GREAT LAKES' STRANGE WEATHER
Lake-effect snow, meteotsunamis, sea smoke, electric-blue ice and even so-called ice volcanoes show how these freshwater lakes can behave more like inland seas than ordinary lakes.
THE MYSTERIOUS CIRCLE BENEATH LAKE ONTARIO
Near Kingston lies Charity Shoal — a nearly circular underwater structure more than a kilometre across. Researchers have proposed an impact crater or volcanic origin, but it has never been drilled, meaning its exact origin remains unresolved.
THOUSANDS OF SHIPWRECKS PRESERVED BELOW
Cold freshwater has preserved wooden and steel wrecks across the Great Lakes, including the Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior and the 19th-century schooner Sweepstakes near Tobermory.
A 9,000-YEAR-OLD HUNTING SITE UNDER LAKE HURON
When Lake Huron was dramatically smaller, the Alpena-Amberley Ridge formed dry land between what is now Michigan and Ontario. Archaeologists have discovered stone hunting structures there, preserved beneath approximately 37 metres of water for thousands of years.
THE WATER THAT BARELY REPLACES ITSELF
The Great Lakes contain roughly 21 percent of the world's surface freshwater, yet only a small fraction of the system turns over each year. Water entering Lake Superior can remain there for generations before eventually reaching the Atlantic.
THE AGREEMENTS THAT CONTROL WHO GETS THE WATER
The 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty created the International Joint Commission to manage shared waters between Canada and the United States. But the Chicago diversion began nine years earlier, leaving it governed under a different legal structure.
THE PERMANENT DRAIN
Today, the Chicago diversion remains capped at roughly 3,200 cubic feet per second, sending Great Lakes water permanently toward the Mississippi basin. Later protections restrict new diversions, but the century-old Chicago outlet remains in place.
The Great Lakes are far more than five large lakes on the Canadian-American border. They are ancient inland seas containing submerged landscapes, lost archaeology, violent weather, preserved shipwrecks, industrial worlds beneath the lakebed — and one of the largest freshwater reserves on Earth governed by agreements most people living beside it have never read.
If you enjoy hidden geography, strange borders, forgotten infrastructure, unusual places and stories that completely change how familiar landscapes look, subscribe for more.
And if you've ever stood beside one of the Great Lakes, tell me which one — and whether it really felt like a lake, or more like an ocean.
20 Comments
The amount of the lake that freezes in the winter determines how hard and stormy our winters are here. I’m right between Lake Huron & Georgian Bay in the winter 🥶❄️🇨🇦
The Great Lakes Are Hiding Something Nobody Talks About
Unseen Canada
175,573 views
The Great Lakes look permanent — five enormous bodies of freshwater that have shaped Canada and the United States for thousands of years. But beneath the surface is a much stranger story. There is a working salt mine beneath Lake Huron, an ancient caribou hunting site buried under nearly 40 metres of water, a mysterious circular structure on the floor of Lake Ontario, thousands of shipwrecks, and a river near Chicago that engineers deliberately forced to run backwards more than a century ago.
This documentary explores 30 remarkable facts about the Great Lakes, moving from unusual geography and hidden places to the much bigger question of who actually controls the water — and what happens when some of it permanently leaves the basin.
What This Video Documents:
CANADA'S HIDDEN GREAT LAKES GEOGRAPHY
From Manitoulin Island — the world's largest freshwater island, containing more than 100 lakes of its own — to Georgian Bay's enormous freshwater archipelago and Canada's surprisingly southern shoreline near Point Pelee.
THE RIVER ENGINEERS FORCED TO RUN BACKWARDS
In 1900, Chicago opened the Sanitary and Ship Canal and reversed the Chicago River, sending water away from Lake Michigan toward the Mississippi River and ultimately the Gulf of Mexico. The diversion still exists today.
A MASSIVE MINE BENEATH LAKE HURON
At Goderich, Ontario, workers descend roughly 1,800 feet underground into an enormous salt mine extending beneath Lake Huron. Trucks are dismantled, lowered underground in pieces, rebuilt below the surface, and may never see daylight again.
THE GREAT LAKES' STRANGE WEATHER
Lake-effect snow, meteotsunamis, sea smoke, electric-blue ice and even so-called ice volcanoes show how these freshwater lakes can behave more like inland seas than ordinary lakes.
THE MYSTERIOUS CIRCLE BENEATH LAKE ONTARIO
Near Kingston lies Charity Shoal — a nearly circular underwater structure more than a kilometre across. Researchers have proposed an impact crater or volcanic origin, but it has never been drilled, meaning its exact origin remains unresolved.
THOUSANDS OF SHIPWRECKS PRESERVED BELOW
Cold freshwater has preserved wooden and steel wrecks across the Great Lakes, including the Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior and the 19th-century schooner Sweepstakes near Tobermory.
A 9,000-YEAR-OLD HUNTING SITE UNDER LAKE HURON
When Lake Huron was dramatically smaller, the Alpena-Amberley Ridge formed dry land between what is now Michigan and Ontario. Archaeologists have discovered stone hunting structures there, preserved beneath approximately 37 metres of water for thousands of years.
THE WATER THAT BARELY REPLACES ITSELF
The Great Lakes contain roughly 21 percent of the world's surface freshwater, yet only a small fraction of the system turns over each year. Water entering Lake Superior can remain there for generations before eventually reaching the Atlantic.
THE AGREEMENTS THAT CONTROL WHO GETS THE WATER
The 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty created the International Joint Commission to manage shared waters between Canada and the United States. But the Chicago diversion began nine years earlier, leaving it governed under a different legal structure.
THE PERMANENT DRAIN
Today, the Chicago diversion remains capped at roughly 3,200 cubic feet per second, sending Great Lakes water permanently toward the Mississippi basin. Later protections restrict new diversions, but the century-old Chicago outlet remains in place.
The Great Lakes are far more than five large lakes on the Canadian-American border. They are ancient inland seas containing submerged landscapes, lost archaeology, violent weather, preserved shipwrecks, industrial worlds beneath the lakebed — and one of the largest freshwater reserves on Earth governed by agreements most people living beside it have never read.
If you enjoy hidden geography, strange borders, forgotten infrastructure, unusual places and stories that completely change how familiar landscapes look, subscribe for more.
And if you've ever stood beside one of the Great Lakes, tell me which one — and whether it really felt like a lake, or more like an ocean.
I grew up in Hamilton, and only know the Great Lakes region as home.
To be able to ride my motorcycle from Fort Erie to Niagara on the Lake, getting sprayed by the falls in both directions on a hot day, and checking out the tourists who payed hundreds or even thousands of dollars to see what I can see every every day for free is priceless.
If you love weather, this is the place to be!