Lake Huron

About

Lake Huron, Michigan — Anishinaabe, 1850-1910 Saginaw Lumber Schooners, 2010 GLRI. Long before European contact, Lake Huron was the homeland of the Anishinaabe — the Ojibwe (Chippewa) and Odawa of the eastern Great Lakes. Called 'Naubinway,' or 'freshwater sea,' in Anishinaabemowin, the lake's shoreline sustained major communities at the Straits of Mackinac, Saginaw Bay, and the Thumb. The Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe, the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, the Bay Mills Indian Community, and many other tribal nations maintain cultural connections to these waters. The 1795 Treaty of Greenville, the 1807 Treaty of Detroit, and the 1819 Treaty of Saginaw established the framework for later cessions.

Sustained Euro-American contact began with the 1670s French Jesuit missions. But it was the lumber era — running from the 1830s through the 1920s — that reshaped the lake's Michigan shoreline. Timber crews logged the coast to feed the 1850-1910 Saginaw Valley white-pine industry, the 1860-1910 Saginaw Bay sawmill operations, and the 1865-1920s Lake Huron lumber schooner trade. The sawmills at Saginaw, Bay City, and Oscoda, active from 1855 to 1910, cut the pine that the 1875-1920s Lake Huron lumber schooner fleet carried across the water. The 1910 exhaustion of the white-pine stands, the 1915 start of state forestry conservation, and the 1920s shift to Pacific Northwest lumber ended large-scale logging.

As the mills were rising, surveyors were charting the lake. The 1840s-1850s US Lake Survey, the 1850s-1880s US Coast Survey hydrographic surveys, and the 1880s-1920s USGS Great Lakes water-level gauging laid the foundation. The 1855-1880 Saginaw Bay lighthouse system and the 1880-1910 Saginaw water-intake surveys followed, and the 1960s-1970s Great Lakes water-quality studies identified the major pollution challenges. Those findings led to the 1972 Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement.

The lake's modern recovery is anchored by the 2010 Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI), a $3+ billion federal program that has funded 5,000+ projects to clean up the Saginaw Bay Area of Concern, prevent invasive species — including Asian carp barriers — and restore native fish populations. The 2015 Michigan Clean Water Plan, the 2019 Great Lakes St. Lawrence Water Resources Compact, and the 2024 GLRI Reauthorization are the major recent outcomes. Along 3,000+ miles of Michigan shoreline, the lake now supports world-class walleye, perch, and lake trout fisheries.

For paddlers today, Lake Huron's Michigan coast is organized into designated water trails — the Alpena Blueway, the Tip of the Thumb Heritage Water Trail, and the North Huron Water Trail. Off Alpena, the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary protects roughly a hundred shipwrecks in cold, clear water, while the Les Cheneaux Islands near Cedarville and Hessel shelter quiet channels behind their thirty-six wooded islands. For anglers, Saginaw Bay ranks among the most productive walleye fisheries in the state, while the lake's deeper waters hold lake trout, Chinook salmon, and whitefish. Cold and open, this is big water that asks for preparation.