Largest shipwrecks on the Great Lakes Isaac M. Scott !scope="row"|"SS Charles S. Price Largest shipwrecks on the Great Lakes The Great Lakes are the largest bodies of freshwater in the world. They are five giant freshwater lakes, named Lake Superior, Lake Huron, Lake Michigan, Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. Thousands of vessels have sailed on the lakes from the late 15th century to the present day. Thousands of ships sank on the lakes from 1679 when "LaSalle"'s wooden barque the "Le Griffon" was lost, to the 1975 sinking of the giant freighter "Edmund Fitzgerald" on Lake Superior. Many of these shipwrecks were never found, so the
Great Lakes of the continent raise concerns. Under the U.S. "Water Resources Development Act", diversion of water from the Great Lakes Basin requires the approval of all eight Great Lakes governors through the Great Lakes Commission, which rarely occurs. International treaties regulate large diversions. In 1998, the Canadian company Nova Group won approval from the Province of Ontario to withdraw of Lake Superior water annually to ship by tanker to Asian countries. Public outcry forced the company to abandon the plan before it began. Since that time, the eight Great Lakes Governors and the Premiers of Ontario and Quebec have negotiated the