Lake Erie: Ohio's Playground

In total area, Lake Erie is the 12th largest freshwater lake in the world and the most shallow of the 5 Great Lakes. It is about 210 miles long, 57 miles wide, with a shoreline of approximately 71 miles with a maximum depth of 210'. Because of its shallow depth, the lake warms up sooner in the spring, making it an ideal fishing spot. Lake Erie also freezes sooner in the winter, creating a large moderating climate phenomenon that keeps temperatures, while still cold, just not bitter cold. That little detail makes the area an ideal grape growing region.

In the western basis of Lake Erie are a number of islands left over from the last ice age. Each island has its own character and charm. These islands have long been popular destinations, first for the Native Americans that came here for the protection the isolated pieces of land provided, but also the great fishing. Not long after the land became a state, the area again became a popular tourist spot attracting visitors from across the country who would arrive here by large steamers.

The beaches of a little jut of land just south of Kelley's Island known as Cedar Point also became a popular tourist spot for its pristine beaches. So many tourists were arriving each summer that a proprietor decided to add a few rides for the kids and the amusement park industry had arrived on the shores of Lake Erie, never looking back.

Over the ages, numerous ice age glaciers helped carve out the Lake Erie basin. Today you can still massive bedrock that was notched by the weight of tons of ice sliding over it on its way into southern Ohio. When the ice melted, large areas of softer limestone and salt beds had collapsed under the weight of the glaciers that left a shallow depression. As the climate warmed, the glaciers melted forming streams and rivers that flowed into that massive depression as they still do today. For the most part Ohio's rivers flow south except for a line that runs roughly through where the glaciers were the heaviest. From that area the rivers flow north, into the lake.

It is these rivers that help maintain the water levels of the lake and provide the spawning grounds for many of the lake's abundant fish. In fact, the southwest section of the lake between the Sandusky and Maumee Rivers has become known as the walleye capital of the world.

Lake Erie Fishing

Because of the lake's shallow depth, Lake Erie offers some of the finest walleye, smallmouth bass and yellow perch fishing in the country. Even during the colder months, Lake Erie offers quality fishing for steelhead trout.

Lake Erie Ferry's

The best way to see the islands is to leave your car on the mainland. Many of the ferry services offer parking. On the islands you can usually rent bicycles and carts to get around. Reservations are not required, it is first come, first served. The one exception are trips to Middle Bass Island. This has a more limited service and vehicles may need a reservation-- people do not.

Weather can be a deciding factor when ferries run. High winds can cause delays, and obviously when there's ice-over, there will be no service.

More Lake Erie Ferry Services>>

• Jet Express
  3 Monroe St.
  Port Clinton, Ohio 43452
  1-800-245-1538
  
  

• Miller Boat Line
  SR 53 N (off SR 2)
  P.O. Box 239
  Put-in-Bay, Ohio 43456
  419/285-2421 or 1-800-500-2421
  
  

• Kelleys Island Ferry Boat Lines
  510 W. Main St.
  Marblehead, Ohio 43440
  419/798-9763
  
  

• Sonny S Ferry
  Put-in-Bay
  419/285-8774
  Departs every hour on the hour from the Boardwalk from Put-in-Bay to Middle Bass Island

  Lake Erie's Major Islands

  There are at least 36 “real” islands in Lake Erie, but an exact count depends on what you decide to include or exclude. Some islands were listed on 19th Century maps, but are now connected to the mainland or submerged. Other islands are not quite in Lake Erie such as Johnson's Island in Sandusky Bay. Still other islands are just mere dots of land such as Starve Island just south of South Bass Island.

  The islands remained sparsely settled until 1854 when J.D. Rivers purchased 5 of the major islands. At first he turned Put-In-Bay into a sheep ranch, having at one time a herd of 2,000, but eventually he converted the island into a fruit farm. Despite the extreme northern location, the islands have the longest frost-free period of any area in Ohio due to the stabilizing effect of the lake's warm waters. It soon became apparent to islanders that the cultivation of grapes was very profitable.

  The grape culture has had a dramatic influence on the islands, sometimes called the "Wine Islands." By 1887, more than 1/3 of the grape produced and nearly 1/2 of the wine produced in the entire state was credited to this area. Wines from these islands were once pronounced by the best judges as being comparable to the best productions of France. Several island wineries still exist today.

  The following are the major Ohio islands in Lake Erie:

  • Catawba Island

  • South Bass Island

  • Put-in-Bay Harbor

  • Middle Bass Island

  • North Bass Island

  • Gibraltar Island

  • Kelley's Island

  • Johnson's Island

How Lake Erie got its name

When French explorers and traders entered the Great Lakes region in the 1600s, American Indian nations already had given names to the immense bodies of water they lived along. As reports and crude maps filtered back to Europe, these Indian names frequently were combined with names the French thought more appropriate.

Samuel de Champlain drew one of the earliest, still-surviving maps in 1632. Champlain named Lake Erie for an Indian tribe living along its shore. The “Neutrals” were a tribe on Erie’s north shore which had not taken a side in a conflict between the Iroquois and the Hurons. Thus Erie became “La Nation neutre.”

Later, Nicholas Sanson, France’s royal geographer renamed the lake Lac Erie, ou Du Chat after the Erie Indian nation. These were a fierce people famed for wearing the skins of cats, a nation known to the Iroquois League as the “Erielhonan,” or the “long-tails.” To the French, this nation was called the Erie, or “cat people.”