The Dynamic Great Lakes

The Dynamic Great LakesThis book is also available on Amazon's Kindle reader.

The Dynamic Great Lakes is on Kindle

The Dynamic Great Lakes by Barbara Spring is available on the Kindle reader.

H20 Podcast

My podcast  click the link to hear me talk about the upper and lower Great Lakes

For Earth Day: The Dynamic Great Lakes

On Planet On Planet Earth, the Great Lakes are absolutely unique.

The decisions we make in our daily lives,  and the choices we make in who represents us in our government may affect generations to come.  The Great Lakes system is a treasure. Understanding their natural processes and understanding the dynamics of what we do is essential to these life giving waters.

The way to solve pollution  problems is to think globally and to act locally.

Picture yourself as an astronaut looking down from a spacecraft at this beautiful planet, the Earth. From space, it is easy to see that everything is connected to everything else.  The great masses of swirling clouds travel over the continents, drop rain, and sometimes along with the rain, pollutants. The lakes, rivers and seas are interconnected. In order to control global pollution problems they must be controlled at their source.

In order to act locally, some communities, both adult groups and school age students have adopted a stream.  They have observed the places where pollution might be occurring then they have spoken out against pollution in their communities, city councils or other government agencies.  Local groups of people are in the best position to observe what is happening to their local stream.

Local citizens can help develop cleanup strategies and local pollution prevention programs. The problem is too important to leave to government officials and industries alone.

Legislation to curb pollution needs to be on a global level as well as on national, state and local levels since everyone is a part of the global whole and flowing air, water and land ecosystems.

The view of planet Earth as seen from a satellite in outer space shows the continents, deep blue oceans and white swirling clouds of vapor. The five Great Lakes show their distinct, interconnected shapes; unique bodies of fresh water.

Of all the planets our satellite cameras and telescopes have probed, only Earth looks inviting or habitable.  A famous photograph taken from the moon shows Earth rising against a barren moonscape where nothing lives.  In the foreground we see jagged rock, but rising in the distance is Earth with its liquid medium: water.  Water and life are inseparable. Where there is life, there is water; where there is water, there is life.

All nations as well as all living things share the water and air supply that is the planet’s life support system; therefore we all share a responsibility for the cleanliness of the air, water, land and its living webs of life. Air and water never stop to show a passport, but circulate freely around the globe.  The great swirling airstreams and water systems we can see from a satellite circulate continually.

If we thought of the Earth as an apple, a layer of life- supporting air, soil and water would only be as thick as the apple's skin. Life on Earth is only possible as long as our limited life support system works.

excerpted from The Dynamic Great Lakes by Barbara Spring

King or Chinook salmon

King or Chinook salmon.  The fishing has started on Lake Michigan.  Pictured is Norm Spring with his catch of the day.

Read more about Pacific salmon planted in the Great Lakes in my book, The Dynamic Great Lakes. Available at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and many other bookstores.

Look Inside The Dynamic Great Lakes

Link below goes to Amazon.com:


http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_nr_p_n_feature_browse-b_mrr_0?rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3Athe+dynamic+great+lakes%2Cp_n_feature_browse-bin%3A2656022011&bbn=283155&keywords=the+dynamic+great+lakes&ie=UTF8&qid=1360073901&rnid=618072011


The Dynamic Great Lakes has a Look Inside feature on Amazon.com.  This book is available in paperback and on Kindle.

Barbara Spring's Amazon page

Summer Time on the Great Lakes

Delight.  Happiness. Joy.  Kids love to play in water and run on the sand and build castles.  That’s what this time of the year is about around the Great Lakes. People relax to the sounds of the waves and see the blues and greens of the water. 

We share these waters with many species of birds.  Sometimes we can see the American bald eagles scavenging the beaches for dead fish or we may see other species such as the rare piping plover.

Read about the Great Lakes in my book, The Dynamic Great Lakes available at Barnes & Noble, Schulers Books and Music, The Bookman and many other stores on the web and elsewhere.

American Bald Eagle: an Environmental Indicator

This eagle is carrying its favorite food: a fish.  We are seeing a lot of eagles on the shores of the Great Lakes since DDT and like pesticides were banned.  Since eagles are an environmental indicator, the environment is healthier than it was.  The problem with DDT is that it builds up in food chains.  Food chains in water are long.

Read more about Great Lakes phenomena in my book: The Dynamic Great Lakes. 









Photo by Steve Damstra

The Dynamic Great Lakes is  widely available on the web and in stores such as Barnes & Noble, the Bookman in Grand Haven and other independent bookstores.

Ice on Lake Michigan: An Eagle Flew Over

On the beach this morning the sun was shining and an eagle flew overhead. It flew low enough to scout for any dead fish that the lake may have tossed on shore or fish that might be seen in the water. I took this photo this morning as the eagle flew overhead.

Usually ice begins to form along Lake Michigan's eastern shore by Thanksgiving.  The Ice was late this year due to and unseasonably warm December.  But now in January the ice is forming ridges on the sandy beach.  The ice feet are building up with each splashing wave and we see ice balls that the waves have tossed on the shore and we see ice balls bobbing in the water.  The hard rim of ice will prevent the beach sand from eroding.  The sun on the new fallen snow was sparkling and the waves splashed over the ice ridges so they will continue to build up. 

 Read more about this phenomenon and about the environmental victory that allowed the American bald eagle to return to the shores of the Great Lakes in my book the Dynamic Great Lakes available at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and many independent bookstores.

Pacific Salmon in the Great Lakes

Lattices of salmon ribs litter the banks of a stream. On cold autumn nights, frost flowers bloom reflecting star light. The stream babbles and unintelligible song as it rushes westward. It is the salmons’ place to be born, to spawn; it is their place to disintegrate and die. Salmon are anadromous fish, fish evolved to follow an elegant rhythm of always returning to their birth stream to spawn after maturing in a saltwater or sweet water seas.

For male and female salmon alike, the imprint of place is their obsession. As smolts they burst from their transparent eggs still wearing a yolk sac on their bulging bellies. Like their ancient ancestors who breathed glacial melt water through their gills, the newborns streak down stream to the freedom of the great inland sweet water seas known as the Great Lakes. In jade green waters they feed their voracious dream until their bodies grow heavy with it—until they resemble silver purses stuffed with treasure: slick coral beads and pearly white milt.

Summer sun dazzles down through the thermoclines—the layers of warm, cool, cold water—where it enters through the fishes’ pineal eyes—triangles on top of their heads—giving them sure knowledge of their place in the larger scheme of things. They bide their time drifting in schools, fanning their tails in repose, gorging on small fish. They dream of their place where clear water chortles over quartz and granite under shifting shadows of white pine and tamarack. It is their place and as their urgent need to return gathers force under a moon that grows heavy on the horizon, a moon the color of salmon eggs, a moon that must change to bone white, the salmon mill about in the harbor.

The fishes’ bellies grow heavy as the harvest moon. The dream becomes reality as celestial cues, the sun, the moon, the stars enter each cellule and each dancing atom of their bodies. Then they begin. The fish return to their stream and nothing will stop them: they ignore hunger, snares, treble hooks. On their silvery sides their lateral lines carry everything they need to know; their maps and compasses imbedded in the circuitry of their bodies…the hereditary wisdom of their species carried in a network of circuits from pineal to tail. It is a sure knowledge of the west Michigan river system linked to the Great Lakes, or in other places, other river systems and other fresh or salt water oceans. It is also the wisdom of the constellations and the way their light glaces from silvery skinned fish, sparkling a wisdom older than mankind. To a salmon obsessed with its sense of place, failure means nothing. They defy high dams, leaping, leaping, leaping again and again until they hurl themselves over the top.

Home at last, the female hollows out a nest on the stream bed with her tail then cascades hundreds of coral bead like eggs into it. The male waits driving away his rivals with fierce charges. It is time. The male salmon releases a small galaxy of milt that will begin the life/death cycle again. Male and female have spent their silver purses in the stream. They are finished. In the next few days their flesh will fall away while they linger, easy prey for the raccoons, bears, ospreys and eagles. With their bones picked clean and their young curled in sleep on the stream bed, the transformation begins again. An osprey shadow glides over the shining stream. The sun rises as the moon glows faintly in the West.


Previously published in The Grand Valley Review, a publication of Grand Valley State University.
copyright by Barbara Spring


*Pacific salmon were planted in the Great Lakes as predator fish to control an invasive species, the alewife. Fishermen have been delighted with these sporty fish. Read more about this phenomenon in my book, The Dynamic Great Lakes available on Amazon's Kindle reader and widely available in paperback.

The Dynamic Great Lakes & The Wilderness Within & Sophia's Lost and Found, Between Sweetwater and Sand

http://www.amazon.com/The-Dynamic-Great-Lakes-ebook/dp/B005HM9BGU/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1314292440&sr=1-1 $9

above: Poetry  below: non-fiction

Fishing for Trout and Salmon in the Great Lakes

The fishing boats are out today.  Read about how the Great Lakes became a mecca for trout and salmon fishing in The Dynamic Great Lakes, a critically acclaimed non-fiction book.

The book is widely available in bookstores and on the net.  Barnes & Noble offers a good price.

A tern takes flight over the Great Lakes above a welter of waves. 

The Dynamic Great Lakes is a book about the nature of life in, above and around the five Great Lakes.  It is available in Michigan from Schuler books in Lansing and Grand Rapids, The Bookman in Grand Haven, Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com plus many other fine bookstores.

The Great Lakes inspire many artists and writers alike.  I am both.  I painted this watercolor and many other works both visual and written.

Fun in the Summer Time Great Lakes

Catching a wave on Lake Michigan.  The Great Lakes are freshwater seas where people frolic on the beach, kiteboard, paddleboard, surf, sailboard and fly kites on the beaches.

Fishing is good also for steelhead, lake run brown trout, coho and chinnok salmon.

Read more about the Great Lakes in The Dynamic Great Lakes available at Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com, Schulerbooks and many other fine bookstores.

Summer is in full swing on the Great Lakes.  People are enjoying the sunshine, sandy beaches and fresh air.  To learn more about the freshwater seas, their fishes, their features and their ecology, The Dynamic Great Lakes is informative, yet easy to read.  Order from Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com or find it in your favorite bookstore.

watercolor by Barbara Spring

Review of the Dynamic Great Lakes by Barbara Spring

Reviewer:  Norman Goldman Editor Bookpleasures     

  Many of us know very little about the five Great Lakes other than perhaps being able to name them. As Barbara Spring states in her introduction to her outstanding primer The Dynamic Great Lakes they are "a flowing river of seas left behind by Ice Age glaciers and are nearly twenty percent of the world's supply of fresh surface water; the world's greatest freshwater system." The ecosystem of this great body of water is very complex and unfortunately due to pollution and the fallout of modern industry and agriculture they have gone through a gradual transformation.

One of the unique characteristics of this compact book is that it is written in a language devoid of esoteric explanations. The eight chapters of the book reflect the author's teaching and journalistic aptitudes in knowing how to unravel the mystery of the Great Lakes and the many painful dangers it has faced and continues to face.

Each of the five Lakes is introduced with a brief synopsis of important elements distinguishing one from the other such as: elevation, length, breadth, average depth, maximum depth, volume, water area, retention time, population and outlet. From this point of departure the author deals with the various changes that have taken place as well as the various major issues affecting the Lakes. There are also brief descriptions of the various animal life found in each of the Lakes and how they have been affected by pollution and the appearance of harmful species, such as the Lamprey Eel.

However, we are also reminded throughout the reading of the book that "people power" can have an effect and if we band together and make our voices heard we could exert influence in reversing some of the harmful trends that have caused ecological disaster. For example we are apprised of the situation that occurred in relation to Lake Erie. In 1969 a tributary river of Lake Erie, the Cayahoga, caught on fire due to being heavily coated with oil and debris. As a result, the Federal Water Quality Administration launched a one and half billion dollar municipal sewage treatment program for the Erie Basin which included the five surrounding states: Michigan, Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, and Indiana.

The conclusion of the book most appropriately reminds us that: "we are all challenged to use our knowledge, creativity and common sense to keep the Great Lakes great. Can you think of ways to think globally and act locally?" We are also warned " life on earth is only possible as long as our limited life support system works.

The sand dunes along Lake Michigan are gifts of the west wind. 

It was here that the father of ecology, Henry Chandler Cowles, made observations about the rapidly changing plant life that led to the

science of ecology.

In 1899 he published

The Ecological Relation of the Vegetation on the Sand Dunes of Lake Michigan

 In this paper he showed the  mutual relationships between plants and their environment.

“Ecology is a study in dynamics,” he wrote.

The word dynamic means change. The Great Lakes are dynamic.

Sand dunes are dynamic, making them a living laboratory for the

study of ecology.

Excerpt from The Dynamic Great Lakes

Available from Barnes & Noble and many other fine bookstores.

Our Unique Great Lakes

On Planet Earth, the Great Lakes are absolutely unique.

The decisions we make in our daily lives,  and the choices we make in who represents us in our government may affect generations to come.  The Great Lakes system is a treasure. Understanding their natural processes and understanding the dynamics of what we do is essential to these life giving waters.
The way to solve pollution  problems is to think globally and to act locally.
Picture yourself as an astronaut looking down from a spacecraft at this beautiful planet, the Earth. From space, it is easy to see that everything is connected to everything else.  The great masses of swirling clouds travel over the continents, drop rain, and sometimes along with the rain, pollutants. The lakes, rivers and seas are interconnected. In order to control global pollution problems they must be controlled at their source.
     In order to act locally, some communities, both adult groups and school age students have adopted a stream.  They have observed the places where pollution might be occurring then they have spoken out against pollution in their communities, city councils or other government agencies.  Local groups of people are in the best position to observe what is happening to their local stream.
Local citizens can help develop cleanup strategies and local pollution prevention programs. The problem is too important to leave to government officials and industries alone.

     Legislation to curb pollution needs to be on a global level as well as on national, state and local levels since everyone is a part of the global whole and flowing air, water and land ecosystems.
The view of planet Earth as seen from a satellite in outer space shows the continents, deep blue oceans and white swirling clouds of vapor. The five Great Lakes show their distinct, interconnected shapes; unique bodies of fresh water.
Of all the planets our satellite cameras and telescopes have probed, only Earth looks inviting or habitable.  A famous photograph taken from the moon shows Earth rising against a barren moonscape where nothing lives.  In the foreground we see jagged rock, but rising in the distance is Earth with its liquid medium: water.  Water and life are inseparable. Where there is life, there is water; where there is water, there is life.
     All nations as well as all living things share the water and air supply that is the planet's life support system; therefore we all share a responsibility for the cleanliness of the air, water, land and its living webs of life. Air and water never stop to show a passport, but circulate freely around the globe.  The great swirling airstreams and water systems we can see from a satellite circulate continually.
If we thought of the Earth as an apple, a layer of life- supporting air, soil and water would only be as thick as the apple’s skin. Life on Earth is only possible as long as our limited life support system works.
     We are all challenged to use our knowledge, creativity and common sense to keep the Great Lakes great. Can you think of ways to think globally and act locally?

Excerpted from my book, The Dynamic Great Lakes

The Singing Sands

Singing Sands in Michigan


Barbara Spring

Build sand castles or lie on the beach, boogie board, kite board or sun bathe. Sand beaches in other parts of the world are o.k., but sand beaches in Michigan are of an especially fine quality. Why? someone asks.

This sand is composed of quartz granules, dark colored magnetite and other fine grains of rock. People love to walk in the so called singing sands…it feels good underfoot. When a toe or shoe is dragged across the sand, there is a high pitched sound or singing. This is due to the high quartz content of the sand.



At any time of year, you may find people enjoying the cool wooded dunes at Hoffmaster State Park on the shore of Lake Michigan in Norton Shores near Muskegon. Some of the best sand dunes in the world are found here and along the coasts of the Great Lakes. At Hoffmaster State Park, there are beaches and places to camp, trails through the wooded dunes, and stairways to climb over the dunes to breathtaking views of Lake Michigan. Naturalists take visitors and school groups through the park and point out owls, song birds and plants.



But to really learn about the dunes, you must visit Gillette Nature Center at the center of the park where there are displays explaining how the dunes were formed by actions of the glaciers and the west wind. The displays show dynamic dune succession: that is how dune plants and animals change over time. It was in dunes such as these that Henry Chandler Cowles studied botany and then wrote “ The Ecological Relation of the Sand Dunes of Lake Michigan” in 1899. The discipline of ecology was born in dunes like this.



There are hands on displays, kids really go for this, on the lower level and a collection of creatures…mammals, reptiles and fish found in and near the dunes.



In the fall, the changing colors of leaves are worth a walk in the dunes and in winter, people like to cross country ski on an old logging trail that hugs the side of a dune. In spring, wild flowers bloom under the trees. Bird migrations pass through here.



Many beautiful and unique dunes were leveled in the past and their intricate ecosystems destroyed by mining the sand for industry and building subdivisions. We still have some dunes left to enjoy on the Great Lakes. They are well worth preserving. After all, they were created over thousands of years. Once gone, dunes with their intricate ecosystems, can never be resurrected by humans.

Read more about dunes in The Dynamic Great Lakes available at Schuler Books in downtown Grand Rapids, the Bookman in Grand Haven or order from the publisher http://www.publishamerica.net/product23502.html.

The Eagles Have Landed.

Photo by Steve Damstra

 Today I saw ten eagles on the beach on the shore of Lake Michigan.

Through the efforts of people who worked to ban DDT, the eagle has returned to the shores of the Great Lakes.  We nearly lost the eagle, the peregrine falcon and the osprey, due to economic poisons that magnified in food pyramids.  This was an unintended consequence of widepread spraying for insects.  Once the widespread spraying stopped, the lakes began to purge the poisons.  But this took many years.  Read about the return of the American bald eagle in The Dynamic Great Lakes.

http://www.publishamerica.net/product23502.html