By Joel Thurtell
The football rivalry between the Wolverines and the Golden Gophers over the little brown jug isn’t the only bone of contention between Michigan and Minnesota.
[The game will be played at noon Eastern time Saturday, November 3, 2012 at Minneapolis. It will be broadcast on the Big Ten Network.]
For decades, the two midwestern states have argued over who has more lakes.
In the 1930s, Minnesotans scoffed at Michigan, which then claimed 5,000 lakes.
Minnesota’s claim at the time was — and still is — 10,000 lakes.
Why, they chortled, all of Michigan’s 5,000 lakes could be poured into one or two of Minnesota’s lakes.
Hey, do I have to translate this into Scandahoovian? We’re not talking VOLUME!
This is a numbers game, pure and simple.
Who has more lakes?
In the 1940s, the Michigan Conservation Department did a re-count. They came up with 11,037 lakes, trumping Minnesota.
One thousand thirty-seven MORE lakes than Minnesota’s paltry 10 k.
In the 1960s, a Michigan State University agriculture professor, Clifford Humphrys, decided to make a really accurate count.
His study, titled “Michigan Lakes and Ponds,” was all about economics and making sure Michigan knew what its lacustrine resources were.
The professor undertook a re-count. All very academic.
This was the lake count of lake counts. Humphrys devised a formula for calculating the surface area of a lake by weighing the paper cut-out of its outline snipped from a United States Geological Survey map.
Imagine clipping and weighing the map outline of every body of water bigger than 1/10th of an acre in both peninsulas of Michigan.
It took a long time, consumed a lot of student work hours, and cost Humphrys the enmity of MSU administrators. At one point, they shut down the survey, but that didn’t stop the professor.
Humphrys published the definitive inventory of Michigan lakes and ponds in 1965. I once talked to him about his study and mentioned the old Michigan Conservation Department estimate of 11,037 lakes.
“Eleven thousand lakes?” exclaimed Humphrys. “Bull!”
When his workers finished cutting lake outlines, they’d snipped the shapes of thirty-five-thousand-sixty-eight lakes.
That’s correct. His study, still used by state agencies, found 35,068 lakes and ponds in Michigan.
Michigan has three and a half times as many lakes as Minnesota.
Minnesota license plates still brag about 10,000 lakes.
Maybe they should re-count.
I’ll donate my shears.
Drop me a line at joelthurtell(at)gmail.com
