I guess. I don’t miss them and always thought they were cold and smelly and didn’t make for great beaches. The weather around them is awful as well with long, bitter cold winters and summer days that are often extremely humid. You can’t really eat the fish out them either due to high levels of mercury.
Additionally the land around the lakes is nice but not spectacular. At least not for North America.
If I were to plan a trip to the general region and wanted wilderness then I’d pick the Boundary Waters I think.
Chicago local here, and Lake Michigan kitesurfer and surfer. The best swells hit when in the fall and spring, so you better have a good wetsuit. That said, since getting into the sports it makes me love the lake even more. You quickly get over the temp, and just get to enjoying the water. Its also nice to not have to worry about sharks! Some of the best surfing in the area is up in Sheboygan, WI, the Malibu of the Midwest.
I practically live in Lake Michigan in Chicago, because of my dog, and learning to embrace the cold means you get the beauty of seeing this huge, open expanse of water with nobody else around, because they are sane and are avoiding the cold.
I loved kitesurfing on Lake Michigan before I moved out to the gorge this year. I was out in Indiana and usually rode MC, Lake St and Wolf. I made some great friends and have some awesome memories of my time there.
> You quickly get over the temp, and just get to enjoying the water.
Having grown up in Michigan I'd say it's more aptly put as "if you're one that can learn to live with the temperature the water can be a lot of fun" as certainly not everyone gets over it - even of those that often enjoy the water!
Never really cared much about the lack of sharks but I will say there is something special about having that "I might as well be at the ocean" scale of water without the damn salt.
You just went to the wrong beaches. There's plenty of sand or pebble beaches with very clear water and little organic matter, especially along Huron where the water is alkaline. It's just cold.
Same lake, just around the bend. I've never been to the western shore of Huron in Michigan, so can't compare to ours in Ontario. But along ours there's some lovely sandy beaches.
I don't know about the southern shore of Erie, but the Canadian side has Long Point, Rock Point, Port Dover, Turkey Point, and Burwell. They're all amazing and the water is shallow enough to be pretty family friendly as well as warming up quickly in the early summer.
It's so gorgeous, and it's awesome that there's a big stretch of public beach with cottages on it (many of which are rentable) but then there's also the provincial park there that has a whole other section of shoreline— you have to pay to access it, but the bathrooms are nicer and there's more parking.
The beaches can have algal blooms which make it smelly some days, and of course there's the history of the dead alewives (but that's not really an issue anymore).
Most days the beaches are lovely, the water clear and nice smelling. The farther you get from big cities, the more true that is. I spent a week on North Manitou Island once. It was incredibly beautiful, like if Hawaii was freaking freezing all the time.
The fish near Chicago have some issues, but it's less Mercury and more PCB's and other toxins.
This is more my experience too. I've lived in the midwest my whole life and honestly cannot understand it why people actually like it here. Maybe if you're really into winter sports I guess. For me, I can barely stand going outside for more than a few minutes for 5+ months out of the year.
I have been to a Great Lake one time (Lake Erie) and it made me sad. The shore had a bunch of dead fish all over it and it smelled very bad. The person i was with, an Erie, PA native, said that the water was pretty much "dead". Very antidotal but if left an impression on me.
Erie is the worst of it because a) it's shallow b) it's warmest c) it is surrounded by intensive agriculture with underregulated fertilizer run-off. But there are actually some nice places along it.
Long Point on its north shore in southern Ontario is a fantastic beautiful beach.
I grew up in Erie—the invasive Zebra mussels have cleaned up Lake Erie a lot in the past couple decades. My understanding is that fish populations are doing much better now because of it.
Zebra mussels are actually quite destructive to the ecosystem, and quickly lead to waters that are choked with vegetation (because light can penetrate deeper into the water), and lacking the sorts of food consumed by filter feeders that form the base of the food chain.
There are some species of fish that prefer the thicker vegetation, but fish populations overall decline significantly when zebra mussels invade.
Additionally the land around the lakes is nice but not spectacular. At least not for North America.
If I were to plan a trip to the general region and wanted wilderness then I’d pick the Boundary Waters I think.