The Death and Life of the Great Lakes · “Carving a Fourth Seacoast” & “Three Fish”
Compare body shape first. These historical illustrations are not to the same scale.
Native predator
Salvelinus namaycush
Identifying features: Light spots. Dark body. Deeply forked tail.
A long-lived fish that hunts in cold water. Egan traces its decline and the resulting changes in the food web.
Predator ≠ parasite. The trout eats other fish; the lamprey attaches to a host.
Parasite in the upper Great Lakes
Petromyzon marinus
Identifying features: Long, round body. Sucker mouth. No paired fins.
Its canal-assisted spread into the upper lakes puts a new pressure on native fish. Control efforts target larvae living in streambeds.
An eel-like fish, but not an eel. “Invasive” here refers to sea lampreys in the upper Great Lakes.
Introduced herring
Alosa pseudoharengus
Identifying features: Silvery sides. Flattened body. Large eye.
A schooling, plankton-eating herring. As predators decline, its population grows; large die-offs leave dead fish on beaches.
Its abundance raises a management question: how to control the population.
Canal advocate · ch. 1
A flour merchant who proposes an inland canal while in debtors’ prison. His proposal addresses the cost of transporting goods.
New York governor · ch. 1
New York’s governor supports the Erie Canal and works to secure political backing for its construction.
Moulinette resident · ch. 1, pp. 33–34
A resident of Moulinette whose home must move for the Seaway project. His account describes the loss of homes, graves, and community ties.
Student letter writer · ch. 1, p. 35
An eighth grader who writes to President Eisenhower about the danger to freshwater fish.
Seaway official · ch. 1, p. 35
The Seaway official who answers Kenney. His explanation of outward-flowing freshwater overlooks the organisms ships can carry in ballast water.
No verified portraits are shown for Hickey, Kenney, or Castle.
Applegate and Tanner propose different approaches to managing the lakes’ fish populations.
Lamprey research and control
Tracks the lamprey’s life cycle and leads the search for a treatment that can kill lampreys while sparing other fish. His aim: make native lake trout recovery possible.
Salmon stocking
Appears at the end of chapter 2 with a competing vision: manage the altered lakes by introducing a new predator.
Louis King and Cliff Kortman also conduct chemical testing under dangerous working conditions. Kortman began as a janitor. See pp. 62–64.
The self-proclaimed king on Beaver Island also observes differences among lake trout. Egan uses his observations to describe differences within the species. See chapter 2, pp. 42–44.
The same lake outlines as our class map. Find the place, then connect it to a character.
Swipe the map sideways. Tap a setting below to highlight it and bring it into view.
North up · equirectangular at 45°N · regional locator, with a Niagara detail. Lake geometry: class handout, September 3, 2026; waterways: class map game, September 8. © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL. Sources & location notes.
Philosophical lenses for reading—not Egan’s own headings, and not necessarily either/or choices.
Ethics of risk
Canals and the Seaway expand trade and create routes for introduced species.
What risks did canal and Seaway advocates consider, and what risks did they overlook?
Environmental ethics
Shipping supports trade but can introduce species that damage the lake’s food web.
How does Egan’s account of native fish complicate the case for expanding shipping?
Distributive justice
The Seaway’s regional benefits arrive with the loss of Hickey’s community.
Who benefits from the Seaway, and what does Hickey’s community lose?
Epistemology: how we know
Castle offers a correct fact about water flow; Kenney’s larger concern remains unanswered.
Why does Castle’s explanation of water flow fail to answer Kenney’s concern?
Causation and interdependence
Suppressing lampreys helps trout, but alewife populations remain a management problem.
Why does controlling lampreys fail to restore the earlier food web?
The meaning of “nature”
Applegate hopes to recover native trout; Tanner points toward a newly managed fishery.
How do Applegate’s and Tanner’s goals for the fishery differ?
These examples concern Egan’s use of description, sequence, and contrast.
Reading: Dan Egan, The Death and Life of the Great Lakes (2017), chapters 1–2, printed pp. 3–74. Descriptions and philosophical questions are original reading-guide paraphrases.
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