There are few views that can draw noses to airplane windows like those of the Great Lakes. From on high, the five lakes that straddle the U.S. and Canadian border can appear impossibly blue, tantalizing as the Caribbean. Standing on their shores and staring out at their ocean-like horizons, it hits you that the Great Lakes are, in one significant way, superior to even the Seven Seas. The Great Lakes, after all, are so named not just for their size but for the fact that their shorelines cradle a global trove of the most coveted liquid of all—freshwater.
