What if the Great Lakes were the Great Islands?

I’ve spent a lot of time sea kayaking on the Great Lakes, including a 45-day sea kayaking trip from Port Huron, MI on Lake Huron to Grand Marais, MN. In all of that paddling, I’d never once imagined the Great Lakes as islands within a sea. But that’s exactly the perspective that cartographer Stephen Kennedy created with his The Great Islands map.

To produce the effect, the Great Lakes bathymetry was inverted, and by inverting it the depths become mountains. The familiar geography of the region is transformed into a completely new world. Michigan becomes the Michigan Sea. Minnesota becomes the Minnesota Maelstrom. Ontario becomes the Great Ontario Ocean. Other land-based features are similarly re-imagined as water.

What I really enjoy is imagining Isle Royale, which I’ve paddled the south shore, and the Apostle Islands, which I’ve kayaked through and at multiple time (and just got back from hiking the ice caves), become lakes within the Superior Island. The Georgian Bluffs in Georgian Bay have a North Range and are part of the Huron Island.

There’s a lot of fun features and imagined names to examine on the map.

I ordered my copy in early January, and after two shipping mishaps with the United States Postal Service, I finally have an undamaged print in hand. It was well worth the wait. The cartographer lives in Madison, and it’s possible he may be available during the Canoecopia timeframe if you happen to be attending and would like to pick up a map in person.

It’s a fun map and I’m looking forward to pulling it out of my Great Lakes map drawer now and then to look it over.

You can get the map at this link.

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