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 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