Alva Review-Courier -

In 1959 we drove the “Family Truckster” to Evanston, Illinois, to visit Great Aunt Daisy. She lived on the shore of Lake Michigan, just a few blocks from Northwestern University.

It was a big deal for a country boy from northwestern Oklahoma to dip a foot in one of the Great Lakes, one of five that hold 84 percent of the fresh water in North America.

How great are they? Shaped by the retreat of glaciers 11,000 years ago, they have a long history of interaction with humans. Home to the Anishinaabe tribe, hunting, fishing and trapping were the mainstays until the white men brought farming, industry, shipping and cities to surround these legacies of the last ice age.

One lake flows into another, bringing about natural wonders like Niagara Falls. The lakes, save for Lake Michigan, are shared by the U.S. and Canada.

Bombarded by fertilizer, sewage treatment and industrial waste, the River Rouge, which flows into Lake Erie, caught fire in 1969. Rachel Carson wrote “Silent Spring” in 1962, helping create the environmentalist movement that has improved water quality, but there are exceptions like the Detroit River still adding lead to Lake Erie and phosphorous from farming operations helping create algae blooms in all the lakes. Invaders from the sea – not Vikings but the Asian Carp – are disrupting the ecosystem.

Climate change will affect the future of the 13.3 million people who depend on the lakes, as the list of life’s certainties – death and taxes – now includes global warming.