As a child, it's hard to know what I gained from traveling. So much slipped past me, lost in the backroads of a child's mind. I remember my father coming home with AAA TripTik books to plan our summer vacation. 1 knew it wouldn't be long before he'd strap on the luggage carrier, get oil for the car and wave goodbye to the neighbors. It seemed we were the only ones who ever left the old neighborhood because my friends were usually standing in the same place when we returned. I remember standing behind my father in the backseat for hours on end, looking over his shoulder down endless highways. I remember hot days east of Minne­sota, the orange roofs of Howard lohnsons, the flapping of canvas from the luggage carrier and the horse ride on Mackinac Island. I remember sitting at my grandma's farm south of Lake Erie, where she told me, "Look carefully, cause on a clear day you can see one of the Great Lakes." And sure enough, there would be a break in the summer haze and I'd see this blue band of water that seemed to go on forever.

It was sometime after my junior year in high school that a family friend told me about this lake called Superior. He said, "If you ever want to really see something, go to Superior." I distinctly remember him telling me about the old fishing village of Bayfield, and the small towns of Cornucopia and Herbster and the high dunes near Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. He talked of the North Shore drive with this distant look in his eyes. I had never heard anyone talk about a place like that before.

That may have been the first time I developed a curiosity about someplace. Maybe it was because 1 was now driving a car and this new freedom needed a place to go. Or was it tripped by a memory of that wide horizon on Lake Erie? I remember the urge I felt to explore this lake.

THE LAKES
We are a part of our regional landscape. We are attracted to its features and the lifestyle they provide. We are shaped by its weather and bound by its history and traditions. Like any region, the Great Lakes have changed us every bit as much as we have changed them. It is important for us to understand that interconnection, to help us see their future as our future.

The Great Lakes live up to the grandeur their name suggests. The largest expanse of freshwater in the world, these lakes comprise one-fifth of the world's fresh surface water. They link eight states, two nations and provide an international highway for the re­sources of North America. They were as awe-inspiring when seen from the birch bark canoes of early voyageurs, as they were to the astronauts when viewed from space, and to all of us who have viewed them from the shore. Ocean-like in their appearance, these inland seas create their own weather system, keeping winters milder and summers cooler through­out the region.

he two westernmost lakes, Superior and Michigan, are closest to America's heartland, where their 4,000-mile shoreline defines a Midwest Coast. They provide the vital link between the resources of the farms and factories of the Midwest and the markets of the world, While different in personality and temperament, their economies have always been interdependent. Iron ore from Minnesota's Mesabi Range, the largest ore deposit in the world, fueled the steel mills of East Chicago and Gary, the backbone industry of the nation's economy.

There is a bond between these lakes as real as the physical features we can trace on a map. This inter­connected system of water has linked people, indus­tries, histories and economies in the heart of the North American continent. Our geography has shaped our collective perspective, our world view. We are drawn, like all societies, to the life-giving quality of these vast water resources, resources that have defined our past and will shape our future.

His eyes were steel blue like the lake he had fished his whole life. When he rested his hand on the gunnel of the weathered fishing boat, it blended with the warped wood and peeling paint. Helmer Aakvik was a man defined by his landscape, and for me he personified Superior's North Shore.

Like so many others of the lake who had learned to live with its harsh and unpredictable ways, at 85, Helmer Aakvik was a man defined by his landscape,. He had come from Norway in his youth, looking for opportunity and adventure. The lake claimed his affection and respect. A quiet and unassuming hero, at 63 years of age he had kept a stormy November vigil in an ice-covered open boat amid 20-foot seas, looking for a young fisherman who had not returned from his nets. Twenty-seven hours later, Helmer returned home empty handed. The young fisherman was never found. Helmer's courageous action brought him fame and an outpouring of sentiment from people across the country. . Even twenty-five years later when 1 met him, he would think of the young man when he looked across the water.

Some islands off the Canadian North Shore have flora and fauna indigenous to the arctic. As proof of the remote landscape, woodland caribou can still be found on the Slate and Lake Nipigon Islands, rem­nants of herds once common in the region a hundred years ago.

In contrast to the wilderness of the North Shore, Superior's southern coast is a more gentle, but varied shoreline. Wisconsin's Apostle Islands have second growth forests of aspen, birch and pine and many are ringed with white sand beaches. Farther east are the multi-hued sandstone cliffs of Pictured Rocks Na­tional Lakeshore, sculpted by wind and water into endless formations and crowned by the softer wilder­ness of Grand Sable Dunes.

Fishermen from the village of Bayfield still ply their trade amid the increasing number of pleasure boats in the Apostle Islands. Quarries on Stockton, Basswood and Hermit Islands, which built the brownstone rowhouses of Chicago and New York, lie dormant in the forest undergrowth. Madeline Island, now a fashionable resort, was once the home of the Ojibway Indians and a key commercial center for the fur trading industry.

GEOFF POPE AND THE SHEILA YEATES

It was sailing on the Sheila Yeates that I first met skipper Geoff Pope. "I can't imagine wanting to mow the lawn and not go sailing," he said to me, gazing across the Canadian shore. At 65 he had realized a lifelong dream of building a classic sailing vessel. His trips through the Great Lakes inspired a sense of adventure and fulfillment in those who chartered the 50-foot top sail ketch under his command.

Now at the age of 75, his restless curiosity seemed to give him boundless energy. He would watch each ripple of sail and sense a wind change with his nose. He knew each indentation of coastline, its history and geology. He had endless tales of maydays and ship­wrecks - sailor's stories to share with crew in the evening kerosene light of the ship's saloon.

Lake Michigan

LAKE MICHIGAN

When the glaciers retreated from Lake Michigan10,000 years ago, they left a gentle coastline of sandy beaches, rich marshland and fertile soil. Through the centuries, prevailing westerlies blew vast amounts of shale and sandstone soils into sand dunes hundreds of feet high that stretch from the Indiana border to the Straits of Mackinac - the largest accumulation of sand dunes on any body of freshwater in the world.

The landscape shrouds changes that have been at work for centuries. Over time, endlessly shirting sand has covered forests of white cedar, and then uncov­ered them years later. Such a "ghost forest" exists at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, a magical place where the marks of man are few in number and brief in duration.

Andy is a third-generation fisherman. His port of Algoma, Wisconsin, on the western coast of Lake Michigan, was once home to 27 commer­cial boats. Now there are only two. As you look around his loft, each net has been draped in time-honored tradition taught by his father at dockside so many years ago. The hours are long, the pay variable, but come each dawn the Leiond LaFond noses out of the Algoma harbor in search of the day's catch.

"Fishing is in my blood," he told me, "it's an obsession for me. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think of the lake. When I was a kid, every day I had off school, I went out on the lake." Commercial fishing is part of the heritage of this region. It is something to be preserved at all costs, according to Andy. Time with a commercial fisherman puts a traditional workday in perspective. Up at dawn to load nets and prime the engine, the 45-foot vessel heads out of the harbor as the sun rests on the horizon.

Andy is a third-generation fisherman. His port of Algoma, Wisconsin, on the western coast of Lake Michigan, was once home to 27 commer­cial boats. Now there are only two. As you look around his loft, each net has been draped in time-honored tradition taught by his father at dockside so many years ago. The hours are long, the pay variable, but come each dawn the Leiond LaFond noses out of the Algoma harbor in search of the day's catch.

"Fishing is in my blood," he told me, "it's an obsession for me. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think of the lake. When I was a kid, every day I had off school, I went out on the lake." Commercial fishing is part of the heritage of this region. It is something to be preserved at all costs, according to Andy. Time with a commercial fisherman puts a traditional workday in perspective. Up at dawn to load nets and prime the engine, the 45-foot vessel heads out of the harbor as the sun rests on the horizon.

We motor past 20 small boats of sport fisherman drawn to this region for coho and king salmon. Angling now dominates the economy of the lake, bringing in 100 times the income of commercial fishing. Few words are said as we pass through the ranks of fohnson out-boards, outriggers and downriggers.

Depending on the placement of his nets, our trip can take one to three hours. Then the nets are hauled in by winches and the fish are placed on the boards for sorting. As the ship rolls in the mid-morning swells, those with a predisposition for motion sickness search for a horizon line and fresh air. Meanwhile the crew cleans the day's catch, with cigarettes draped easily from the corners of their mouths and filleting knives moving rhythmically.