Fresh Coast
The Great Lakes region of Northern America is a binational Canadian–American region centered on the Great Lakes that includes the U.S. states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin and the Canadian province of Ontario. It encompasses both the Upper Midwest and parts of the Mid-Atlantic. Canada's Quebec province is at times included as part of the region because the St. Lawrence River watershed is part of the continuous hydrologic system. The region forms a distinctive historical, economic, and cultural identity. A portion of the region also encompasses the Great Lakes megalopolis.
State and provincial governments are represented in the Conference of Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Governors and Premiers, which also serves as the Secretariat to the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Compact and the Great Lakes–Saint Lawrence River Basin Sustainable Water Resources Agreement.
The Great Lakes region takes its name from the corresponding geological formation of the Great Lakes Basin, a narrow watershed encompassing the Great Lakes, bounded by watersheds to the region's north by the Hudson Bay, to the west by the Mississippi, and to the east and south by the Ohio. To the east, the rivers of St. Lawrence, Richelieu, Hudson, Mohawk and Susquehanna form an arc of watersheds east to the Atlantic.
The Great Lakes region, as distinct from the Great Lakes Basin, defines a unit of sub-national political entities defined by the U.S. states and the Canadian province of Ontario encompassing the Great Lakes watershed, and the states and province bordering one or more of the Great Lakes.
Since time immemorial indigenous peoples have lived in the Great Lakes region. Historically, native tribes in the region have engaged in political alliances with other indigenous groups and maintained cultural kinship and harvesting relationships. For instance, Potawatomi peoples have organized culturally and politically through the ‘seasonal round’ system to adapt to environmental change. During the period of early European exploration and colonization in the region, policies aimed at western expansion encroached upon Native land, intending to remove Native Americans from their land and the U.S. political landscape. European settlement also affected Native American relationships with local ecosystems through removal from lands, industrialization, and environmental degradation, causing disconnection from cultural practices. Despite this, indigenous groups including the Anishinaabe and Potawatomi exercise self-determination through maintaining reciprocal relationships with the land and conservation projects including that of Lake Sturgeon.
The Great Lakes make up the world’s largest freshwater system, supporting millions of people but have been historically impacted by pollutants from agricultural runoff, sewage disposal, and contamination from local industries leading to long-term environmental impacts and health implications for residents, as well as large-scale governmental policy responses. The region has seen several water quality crises including in 2014 in Toledo and Flint. These cases underscore the unequal impact of environmental harm on vulnerable minority communities in the region.
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