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Comment by jamiek88 | Hacker News Reader

When I first flew to the USA from UK we took off from London then were almost immediately over water, for about 6 hours, then (I had a window seat) we we finally over land!

Then we went over water again for about an hour and I was confused. The Atlantic was behind us?

Turns out we flew over the great lakes, which took an hour at circa 500 mph.

Mind blown.

Then I went to Chicago and they have a beach. With an ocean. Looks exactly like a normal beach. Except it's a lake! Fresh water beach blew my tiny mind again.

The largest lake I'd seen before that was in the lake district (imaginatively named) in England. They were big, to me. But they were not horizon to horizon like Lake Michigan was.

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I think part of this is down to a failure of the English language around the word ‘lake’.

If we had a word for “inland freshwater sea” then we would be able to distinguish between a lake and a _lake_. The best we can do right now is add “great” preceding it!

There is a Caspian sea in Asia, which is a lake to make it more clear.

In the end, the disctinction based on size is a wonky one and makes no sense in the long run so I don't mind having large lakes that are bigger than some seas

English doesn't do that badly here. German and some other European languages use the same word for a 100 metre wide lake as for a sea stretching a thousand kilometers, like the North Sea.

In German it's a bit complicated:

- die See (fem.), alt. das Meer (neutr.) - the sea (a saltwater ocean)

- der See (masc.) - the lake (an inland freshwater lake)

But then again, "das Meer" is sometimes used for freshwater lakes when connotated with some context, e.g. "das Schwäbische Meer" as an alternative name for "Lake Constance".

The surface area of Lake Bakal isn’t even that large. It’s just really deep.

freshsea or superlake?

I traveled to Russia in 2019 and visited Lake Baikal. Was hard to wrap my mind around the fact that it contained nearly a fifth of all fresh surface water in the world.

Yeah, it's not only big but also extremely deep.

And it’s getting bigger

> Then I went to Chicago and they have a beach. With an ocean. Looks exactly like a normal beach. Except it's a lake! Fresh water beach blew my tiny mind again.

Come visit Lake Ontario sometime.

we have an area with almost 2,000 islands all grouped together.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_Islands

Some are small, others a pretty decent size with multiple homes on them (Wolfe island).

I've lived on the coast of lake Ontario most my life.. I enjoyed reading your post as it put things in perspective. Normally Lake Ontario is just sort of there, i ride my bike 80KM along its shores every other day..

I guess some lakes do not have 1,146 km or shoreline?

> I guess some lakes do not have 1,146 km or shoreline?

Fun aside -- that depends on how precisely you measure. Shorelines resemble fractals, and the higher resolution you measure them at, the longer they will get.

Completely agree with you. I just googled "lake ontario shoreline" and i'm sure if you spent a few mins you would find multiple answers for the reason you specified.

I think shoreline also includes islands, so in lake Ontario's case.. there are a lot of islands and so my point is sort of washed.

Wow, sounds amazing, i will do!

I've only been to Western Canada (Alberta mostly) and would love to see more of your great country and I believe I have relatives in Toronto so would love to travel more there.

I lived out in Alberta long ago.. if you like "nature".. Ontario doesnt have much to offer.. it isnt like you can see a snow-covered mountain range from your backyard in Ontario (this was my view in Calgary).

But we do have Lake Ontario, Niagara falls, etc. Walk down the bridge, pay the 25 or 50 cents and walk to the US side... Niagara falls Canada is a tourist trap, the US side is a state park.

The GTA (Greater Toronto area) will be an interesting experience for you.

Despite the massive size of the country, a lot of the population lives in a thin strip along the US/CAN border.

Population of Alberta 4.371 million

Population of the GTA 5.928 million

Population of Canada 38.25 million

Don't forget that Michigan and Huron are actually a single lake.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Michigan%E2%80%93Huron

Mind TRIPLE blown.

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