The Past
10,000 years ago the last Pleistocene glacier retreated across this region, leaving behind the Great Lakes and their drainage basin. The first human inhabitants arrived soon thereafter, living off abundant game, fertile soil and clean water. By 1,600 A.D., the native population of the Great Lakes Basin exceeded 100,000. It was composed of distinct and widely scattered tribes who spoke one of three common languages: Iroquoian, Algonquian or Siouan. Each tribal group gathered seasonally in villages of 100 to 500 people.
In the 1600's European exploitation began, changing forever the native people of the Great Lakes.
The Present
Today, about 37 million people live within the Great Lakes Basin, comprising 10% of the U.S. population and 25% of Canada's. One of the world's largest concentrations of industry generates a level of human activity that has drastically altered the region and its ecosystem.
When the Europeans arrived, vast stands of hardwoods dominated the southern Great Lakes. In the north, dense evergreen forests were interspersed with clean lakes and rivers. Now only a few small vestiges of the original forests remain. Toxic air and water pollutants are found even on isolated Isle Royale.
While we exploit our natural resources, we are damaging the capacity of the ecosystem to renew itself, thus destroying life within it - perhaps including ourselves.
The Future
Disruption of the Great Lakes ecosystem will continue in the forseeable future. However, major reductions were made in water pollutants during the 1970's, resulting in cleaner water throughout the lakes. The citizen involvement and government actions that brought those improvements provide hope that acid rain, air pollution, toxic and nuclear waste problems can also be solved. Future generations depend on us to do so!
Wild beasts and birds are by right not the property merely of the people alive today, but the property of the unborn generations, whose belongings we have no right to squander.
Theodore Roosevelt - 1915
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