From Bay City and Saginaw Bay · Maritime, ecology, history, and the water
Chris Izworski is based in Bay City, Michigan, on Saginaw Bay, the largest embayment of Lake Huron, and one of the most productive freshwater bays in the world. The Great Lakes are the backdrop to everything here: the freighters that transit the bay each navigation season, the Soo Locks opening in late March, the ecology of a watershed that holds twenty percent of the world's surface fresh water, and the history of two centuries of commercial navigation on inland seas.
The content below is built from years of watching the lakes from Bay City, tracking vessels on AIS, reading the water levels, fishing the tributaries, and paying attention to what moves on and around the Great Lakes throughout the year. For the daily maritime brief, the Great Lakes Gazette is updated automatically each morning.
Daily maritime newsletter, vessel movements, water levels, port reports, and NOAA lake conditions. Updated every morning from live AIS and NOAA feeds.
How to watch vessel traffic on the Great Lakes using live AIS data, tools, vessel types, seasonal patterns, and the Soo Locks schedule.
Two centuries of commercial navigation on the Great Lakes, the fleet, the ports, the canals, and the ships that built the industrial Midwest.
The wrecks of the Great Lakes, storms, groundings, and the cold fresh water that preserves them. Lake Superior, Lake Huron, and the stories behind the losses.
The lighthouse network that guided navigation on the Great Lakes, architecture, history, and the lights still operating today.
The full circumnavigation route around Lake Superior, ports, viewpoints, and what to know before you drive the shore.
The ecology of Saginaw Bay, one of the most productive freshwater bays in North America, and the watershed that drains much of Michigan's Lower Peninsula into Lake Huron.
The fish of the Great Lakes, native species, introduced species, the charter fisheries, and what is running in the tributaries by season. For trout fishing on the AuSable River specifically, see the AuSable trout fishing page.
Shorebirds, waterfowl, and migration along the Great Lakes, stopover sites, species, and the seasonal patterns that make the lakeshore one of the best birding corridors in North America.
Chris Izworski also publishes Freighter View Farms, a gardening blog and seed-saving project on Saginaw Bay. The name reflects what the property looks out on, the freighter traffic on the bay that marks the seasons as reliably as the frost dates.