Lakes & Oceans

This is an ORK poster which I really want. I love it. 

Having grown up on Lake Ontario (although truth be told I didn't see the lake all that often - which is part of the reason I'd love to live near the lake or in a condo with a view of the lake when I move back to Toronto but I digress...), my loyalties have to lie with that lake. Of the Great Lakes it is my favourite. But Lake Huron is a very close second. I first loved Lake Huron when I went to this camp on the Bruce Peninsula during the summer of 1996. The camp would take us swimming in Lake Huron and I also got to go out sailing on the lake once and it was a really exhilarating experience. One of the counsellors who was an experienced sailor took us out on a windy day. The water was quite choppy but it was so much fun. I've only seen Lake Michigan briefly and while I have seen Lake Erie at least a few times, it never made much of an impression on me. I am sure it would though if I were to spend more time near it or see it from a high up vista and be reminded how big it is. It is Lake Superior that I most want to see. It is the largest and deepest of the Great Lakes and I really want to stand in front of it and hopefully swim in it one day.

Sometimes I stop to think about how Toronto is on a Great Lake and it makes me really happy. Every time I see a map of North America I am always reminded and amazed at how big the Great Lakes truly are. I love how all of the Great Lakes (well mostly I am thinking of Ontario and Huron but I am sure it applies to the others too) look like the ocean. My dad belongs to a golf club in the east end of Toronto located on these cliffs overlooking Lake Ontario. I love going there because the view is so lovely and because Lake Ontario looks exactly like an ocean. Back in March 2010, C. came to visit me in Toronto and we went to the Beaches and sat on a bench along the boardwalk and looked out at Lake Ontario. C. is a born and bred Californian (I feel like this fact is an important one because C. has lived next to the Pacific almost all of her life and so knows what oceans look like) and she remarked that the lake looked exactly like the ocean. Perhaps the best part about living in Owen Sound right now is its proximity to the Lake Huron coast. Even more so than with Lake Ontario, I think Lake Huron looks like an ocean. With Lake Ontario, depending on the day/weather, you can sometimes see across to New York state on the other side. With the part of Lake Huron I've been to, even on the clearest of days, you can't see Michigan. Throughout September and part of this month too, D. and I have been going to Sauble Beach on Lake Huron (the second longest fresh water beach in the world after Wasaga Beach which is on Georgian Bay) on a fairly regular basis, and I have seen the lake be much like the ocean in that it has different moods. A few times we were there it was very choppy and the waves were really big; other times it was calm. All times it was only the lack of the scent of salt in the air that convinced me I wasn't standing on the shores of an ocean.

Another thing I like about lakes is that you can refer to a specific lake as "the lake" in the same way we say "the city." Except for in this post, I never call Lake Ontario anything other than "the lake." That's just what it is, and I'm sure that's the same for anyone who lives on lakes. K., who grew up in Penticton, BC which is on two lakes, told me once that she likes lakes more than the ocean and I was shocked. How could anything compare to the ocean? But now, I kind of get it. Although that's mostly because Lake Huron reminds me of the ocean. I'd still take the ocean over a lake though, and most definitely I prefer oceans to small lakes.

Instead of Lake Huron, this looks like it could be somewhere in the Caribbean! 

I like the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans equally. Back when I lived in California I probably would have said I prefer the Pacific but I have been to so many cool places on the Atlantic ocean that I like it just as much. I love the way the ocean's colour depends on the sky, I love how it is sometimes calm and sometimes choppy (I could sit and stare at the ocean and its waves for days), and I love sea breezes and the smell of salt. Some of the things I just listed apply to the Great Lakes too but the big thing oceans have over lakes, even the Great Lakes, is their size. Sometimes the size of the ocean, especially the Pacific, can be intimidating but I mostly think it's the size that makes oceans so wonderful. I love how you can't ever see the other side of the ocean. In March during my first year at Berkeley, so back in 2003, I spent the night at N.'s house in the Sunset district of San Francisco before going home for spring break the next day. N., her brother S. and I went out to Ocean Beach at night. It was dark so we couldn't see well but I still loved just smelling the salt air. I remember we talked about how if we just kept going west from there, all the way across the Pacific, we'd hit Japan. That distance is both exciting and slightly terrifying in its vastness.

The vastness of the ocean...

The last way I want to compare lakes and oceans is in terms of swimming in them. One of my favourite  (although I find parts of it so frustrating) books is Ann Patchett's Patron Saint of Liars and I remember the main character lived in LA for a time and loved to go swimming way out in the ocean at night. (Interesting side note: I was happy to discover when I read Ann Patchett's memoir Truth & Beauty that she swims lengths regularly). I'm scared to swim in the ocean at night (the possibility of a shark attack and also how the infiniteness of the ocean seems magnified in the dark) but I love swimming in it during the day. I love floating on the surface and being carried by gentle waves, and I like smelling the salt (and I like the curls that form in my hair when I've been in the ocean and let it air dry) and I like wearing goggles and diving beneath the surface and sometimes seeing little fish. Swimming in lakes is fun too and can feel refreshing but, oddly enough since you'd think salt might leave some sort of salty residue on my skin, I more feel the desire to take a shower coming out of a lake than out of the ocean. My favourite part about swimming in the ocean or a lake is the feeling that you're in something natural and timeless (this sounds so crunchy but it's true) and that's a feeling you just can't get in a pool.

One final shot (courtesy of D.) of Lake Huron from Sauble Beach.