As
you travel along the shores of Lake Gogebic you may on
occasion read a sigh that says "Lake Gogebic Loop".
The loop is part of the Great Lakes Circle Tour. This
tour extends along 1300 miles of Lake Superior coastline,
which runs through the states of Wisconsin, Minnesota,
Michigan and the province of Ontario, Canada.
Marked with distinctive
green and white Circle Tour signs, the Lake Michigan Circle
Tour and Lake Superior Circle Tour are part of the 7,000
mile Great Lakes Circle Tour that now circumnavigates all
five Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence Sea-way. Welcome to
the shores of the Great Lakes - America' Freshwater Coast
and beautiful Lake Gogebic! On the scale of geologic time
the Great Lakes are very young - about 20,000 years old.
They were born when mile-thick glaciers moved up and down
the continent, gouging huge basins in the earth over
thousands and thousands of years. As the last glaciers
retreated, the basins filled with melt water and rain and
after many more thousands of years, became the Great Lakes
of today.
Together,
the Great Lakes stretch a thousand miles across the
continent, covering an area larger than New England. They
contain one-fifth of all the surface fresh water on the
planet, and flow eastward through the St. Lawrence River to
the Atlantic.
Lake Superior is the
largest freshwater lake in the world. Extending 350 miles
east to west and 160 miles north to south. Superior has a
surface area slightly larger than the state of South
Carolina. The lake is 600 feet above seas level, with an
average depth of 489 feet and a maximum depth of 1,333 feet.
Much of Lake Superiors
shoreline remains wild and remote. Superior's waters remain
the most pristine of all the Great Lakes. The Apostle
Islands National Lakeshore is just an hour's drive from Lake
Gogebic and worth the visit. Twenty-one of the 22 Apostle
Islands are included in the national lakeshore. Several
islands have lighthouses, and camping is allowed on some
islands.