• Michigan, France, and the United States have all sued for claim to the “holy grail” of Great Lakes shipwrecks, French explorer La Salle’s ship Le Griffon (pictured) that sank in 1679?

Facts on topics related to Le Griffon

Lake Michigan

• after the retreat of the Wisconsin glaciation, postglacial Lake Michigan used to drain through Mackinac Falls, which are now completely submerged under Lake Huron?

Great Lakes

• artifacts discovered at Mound Bottom, Tennessee show that the site was part of a vast Native American trading network extending to the Great Lakes, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Appalachian Mountains during the Mississippian era?
• Michigan, France, and the United States have all sued for claim to the “holy grail” of Great Lakes shipwrecks, French explorer La Salle’s ship Le Griffon (pictured) that sank in 1679?
• HMS Ontario, an 80-foot sloop of war recently discovered at the bottom of Lake Ontario, is the oldest shipwreck and the only fully intact British warship ever found in the Great Lakes?
• Savanna Portage State Park preserves a historic portage trail used by Native Americans, fur traders, and explorers to cross between the watershed of the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River?
• Spectacle Reef Light (pictured), a lighthouse on Lake Huron, Michigan, has been described as "one of the greatest engineering feats on the Great Lakes"?
• the bloody-red mysid (pictured), a crustacean native to the Ponto-Caspian region, has recently invaded the North American Great Lakes?
• the bloater, which inhabits the depths of the Great Lakes, swells when brought to the surface?
• the English Sundew, a carnivorous plant with wide distribution in the northern hemisphere, originated from a hybrid involving a plant with localized distribution in the Great Lakes area?
• the Erie Land Light (pictured) was the first lighthouse built by the United States Government on the Great Lakes?
• the Great Lakes Storm of 1913 was the deadliest natural disaster to hit the Great Lakes basin region, killing over 250 people?

Michigan

• 43 miners were trapped for five days underground in the 1926 Pabst Mine Disaster in Michigan?
• Detroit's Rosedale Park, containing 1,533 properties, is the largest district in Michigan to be listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places?
• Henry Ford helped stop construction of a state highway in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in order to gain admission to the exclusive Huron Mountain Club?
• Jennifer Granholm became the first female governor of Michigan after winning the 2002 Michigan gubernatorial election?
• Michigan highway M-97 was simultaneously named both Reid Highway and Groesbeck Highway by different levels of government from 1927 until 1949, the year it was dedicated to Alex Groesbeck?
• Michigan's Ludington Public Library was claimed as the library that will last a thousand years?
• Michigan's Mason County District Library is an umbrella entity that administers two libraries?
• Michigan, France, and the United States have all sued for claim to the “holy grail” of Great Lakes shipwrecks, French explorer La Salle’s ship Le Griffon (pictured) that sank in 1679?
• Bruce Hilkene was captain of the 1947 Wolverines who were selected as the greatest Michigan football team of all time?
• Burnt Hair Records was part of Michigan's space rock music scene in the 1990s?

Detroit River

• Mamajuda Island in the Detroit River, which once contained a lighthouse, has since been eroded away to nothing more than a few boulders seen only during times of low water levels?

Lake Erie

• the Ashtabula Harbor Light in Lake Erie was encased in ice by a storm in 1928, trapping its keepers inside for two days?
• the proposed Rampart Dam on the Yukon River in Alaska would have created a man-made reservoir larger than Lake Erie?

Lake Huron

• Hockey Hall of Famer Babe Siebert drowned in Lake Huron before he could take up a new role as coach of the Montreal Canadiens in 1939?
• Spectacle Reef Light (pictured), a lighthouse on Lake Huron, Michigan, has been described as "one of the greatest engineering feats on the Great Lakes"?
• Father Joseph Le Caron, the first European to see Lake Huron, also assisted at the first Catholic mass in Quebec and performed the first Christian marriage in Canada?
• after the retreat of the Wisconsin glaciation, postglacial Lake Michigan used to drain through Mackinac Falls, which are now completely submerged under Lake Huron?

Lake Ontario

• HMS Ontario, an 80-foot sloop of war recently discovered at the bottom of Lake Ontario, is the oldest shipwreck and the only fully intact British warship ever found in the Great Lakes?
• local tradition in Lyndonville, New York, holds that Jackson Blood's family hauled all the cobblestones for their house down from Lake Ontario themselves?