Great Lakes Patrol assigned to operate against criminals who were ravaging the logging industry. These so called timber pirates conducted illegal cutting of timber on federal land and then smuggled the valuable commodity out of the area in order to sell it. The areas most affected were in the western Great Lakes region, along the coasts of Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois and Minnesota. Much of these forested areas controlled by the government were reserved for the building of new warships. The illegal timber trade centered on Chicago and Milwaukee. It was nearly as violent as the alcohol trade, which was carried out over the
Great Lakes Basin million people. The basin hosts eight of Canada's 20 largest cities, including Toronto, Hamilton, London, St. Catharines, Niagara, Oshawa, Windsor, and Barrie. The United States cities of Duluth, Milwaukee, Chicago, Gary, Detroit, Toledo, Cleveland, Erie, Buffalo, and Rochester, are located on shores of the Great Lakes. Each individual lake forms a sub-basin, such as the Lake Erie Basin, and each sub-basin consists of multiple watersheds, such as Pennsylvania's Lake Erie Watershed. The overall Great Lakes Basin is monitored by the binational Great Lakes Commission. Quebec, a portion of whose lands drain into the St. Lawrence Basin, is a signatory to