[Stuart Carlton]
Teach me about the Great Lakes. Teach me about the Great Lakes. Welcome back to Teach Me About the Great Lakes, a twice monthly podcast in which I, a Great Lakes novice, ask people who are smarter and harder working than I am to teach me all about the Great Lakes.

My name is Stuart Carlton and I work with Illinois Indiana Sea Grant and I know a lot about a day of snow followed by a day of sweat. But I don't know a lot about the Great Lakes and that's the point of this here podcast. I'm joined today, so lucky, by the woman with only one nickname, at least this year, Megan the Lake Lover Gun.

Megan, guess what? We have an Ask Megan question.

[Megan Gunn]
I'm ready for it.

[Stuart Carlton]
You're ready for it? This is from listener Anderson, the Great Anderson. And here's what the Great Anderson has to say.

What is your unpopular opinion or hot take about the Great Lakes?

[Megan Gunn]
Oh man, my unpopular opinion would be it's too cold for too long.

[Stuart Carlton]
Too cold for too long.

[Megan Gunn]
It's too cold for too long.

Like you can't really enjoy it, especially Lake Michigan, until like later in the summer. But I want to go, as soon as school is out, I want to go to the beach. And you can't really do that in Lake Michigan until like late July.

[Stuart Carlton]
So it's not a hot take, that's a too cold take. But I'm totally, totally in on this. I'm always like, let's bring the kids up to the lake so that they can drown or whatever.

And then I look at the temperature and it's like 51 degrees. And I'm like, I'm not taking the kids up to the lake. I agree.

Lakes, you're too cold for too long. A little bit of cold is good. Especially when you go to like South Haven, Michigan in August and it's cool then.

That's pretty nice. But in between, too cold. All right.

Well, that has nothing to do with anything. Other announcements, Lakey Awards, definitely on. So for those of you who don't know, every year, except for last year and maybe the year before, for various internal to the team reasons, we host the Lakey Awards, which is possibly not the least prestigious podcast related Great Lakes Awards that there are.

You can nominate things in categories such as the Great Lakes Science of the Year, Great Lakes News Story of the Year, Great Lakes Animal of the Year.

[Megan Gunn]
Animals are my favorite to hear about.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah. Great Lakes Non-Animal of the Year. Or you can do like a bonus, whatever.

Look, there's a place on the form for you to nominate whatever you want. So just go right now on your podcast reader. I want you to tell your passenger to grab the steering wheel and then you look down at your phone and I want you to tap on the link that's in your show notes and I want you to do some nominating.

Or I'm sorry, I'm getting electrocuted right now. Pull the car over and then do it. That's probably a better way.

[Megan Gunn]
I think phones have advanced way more since then when you couldn't drive without having things probably hurt your hands. Do you remember? I mean, I remember.

I'm much younger than you are, but I do remember. I'm a little younger than you are. I remember when the phones were in the glove compartment and that is how you use them.

But I'm sure that there were some kind of technical issues.

[Stuart Carlton]
How did you use the glove phone in the what?

[Megan Gunn]
My dad had a car that had a glove like the telephone within the glove compartment and you got to.

[Stuart Carlton]
Oh, yeah. Like car phones. Oh, yeah.

No, my mom had one of those and you had to call and basically because the amount they cost was just nuts. And so, yeah, you pick it up. You're like, I'm running late.

Click or go get your sister. You got to hang up. She was like, anyway, Megan, you're getting us distracted, which is normally my job.

[Megan Gunn]
I'm sorry.

[Stuart Carlton]
No, we have a great conversation. We're coming tonight.

So at the end of the year, what we spend a lot of time thinking about is we reflect in the end of the year and what we've done over the year. And it's a time for turning internal. In my family, we have a made up holiday we celebrate called Bjorforgol Stag, which is too long a story to tell in the show.

But the point is this. You start to think about the passage of time, but that's not actually the only passage that you might start to think about. Another passage is the passage of fish.

And that is the point of this year's show today. Today's guest is Jeff Tyson, who's the program manager and fishery management at the Great Lakes Fishery Commission over there in beautiful Ann Arbor, Michigan, home of Zingerman's and many other fine sandwich and donut shops. Jeff, how are you today?

[Jeff Tyson]
I'm doing great, Stuart. Thanks for having me.

[Stuart Carlton]
Oh, we're so excited that you are here. So fish passage is no matter how tenuous the connection I just made to fish passage, it's actually pretty important. So tell us what is fish passage?

Why is this a deal in the Great Lakes? You know, we think about impounded areas or whatever. Why do we care about fish passage in the Great Lakes?

[Jeff Tyson]
Yeah. So, Stuart, that's a great question. There's a number of fish in the Great Lakes that actually utilize stream and tributary habitat for various life history stages.

So many, many of the species utilize tributaries for spawning or reproduction, go up and deposit eggs, and then those eggs hatch out and our larvae are moved downstream into the Great Lakes. So they're a significant source of fish production for many of the Great Lakes for a number of species. So I'm talking lake sturgeon, our tributary spawners, walleye.

You've got coaster brook trout that move up streams, white bass, a whole host of species that utilize tributaries for reproduction. So getting up to that spawning habitat is really, really important for production of these fish that are feeding the fisheries across the Great Lakes.

[Stuart Carlton]
And so it's all about tributaries and fish spawning and things like that. And so is that something, it seems to me like that's something that's largely a result, of course, of human interaction with the lakes and humans sort of modifying the lakes and things like that. Is that something that's kind of a relatively new concern or is that something we've been working on for a while?

[Jeff Tyson]
Yeah, no, this has been an issue for a while. I think there's long been recognition that restricting passage in these tributaries has impacted the productivity of the Great Lakes fisheries. And so folks have been on the landscape for a number of years trying to address fish passage.

And in some cases that fish passage is selective fish passage where you're leaving the barrier in but moving fish up above that barrier so they can access spawning habitat versus other situations where the barrier can come out. So one of the things that we have to sort of deal with here at the Great Lakes Fishery Commission is we work with fisheries management agencies across the basin to try to enhance fish production. But we are also the primary organization that controls sea lamprey, which is an invasive species that utilizes tributaries as well for spawning.

So we have to evaluate these systems within the context of what the value is for fish production and what the risk is associated with sea lamprey.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah, and that's super hard to kind of make that tradeoff. Do you use monitoring studies to do that each year or is it just something where people, so they come in and they sample the populations and figure it out? How do you use that information?

[Jeff Tyson]
So for a number of the projects that we're looking at for fish passage, we generally get sea lamprey control larval assessment crews up in the watershed. And they'll go up and sample that watershed, see if they find any sea lamprey because sometimes there is escapement around the barriers. And then also if they see any what we call surrogate species.

So other native lampreys would be an indication that the system could potentially support sea lampreys in that system. Also environmental DNA, which is you sample the water to see if you can detect these species up there. Those are ways that we use to sort of inform that risk around sea lamprey.

And then that helps us inform what the best strategy is for enhancing fish passage.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah, I like the way you think about that in terms of risk or tradeoffs, right? Because nothing's 100% ever, but it's what people don't know. So my master's was in fisheries biology a long time ago, even before I was the world's worst middle school science teacher.

I had a master's in fisheries biology. And so working with a lot of, and I was not a skilled fish biologist in very many ways, mainly in ways that involved me being lazy. But that said, what you realize is when you work with fish biologists is they really want to promote the fishery kind of broadly defined, right?

Even when it's managers who are trying to set limits and everything like that, they're trying to set limits as high as they can to let people catch fish. And so I did all this work in Florida and Georgia. And in Florida, the fish stuff was real controversial, especially around the time I was there, around in the early 2000s, there was a big reef fish controversy.

But I think people sometimes miss that fundamental thing. What y'all are trying to do is enable this resource, right? But it's all about risks and trade-offs, both within the fishery, but also broader.

And I think, yep, when you're talking about passages, a lot of times these broader things come into play too, because these are impounded rivers. And so we want to talk about one kind of specific one, right? Which is the Flat Rock and Hurok Dams Feasibility Study.

What is, can you give us some background on this?

[Jeff Tyson]
Sure. The Flat Rock, Hurok Dams Feasibility Study was just completed this summer, actually. And it was completed with a broad group of partner agencies, including the Huron-Clinton Metro Parks, the City of Flat Rock, the Huron River Watershed Council, and Michigan DNR.

And really, it was to look at these systems to try to enhance fish passage, to increase production for, in particular, Lake Erie. Just background on the dams. They've been in the system for a long time.

There's two of them, and they're actually about 1,000 yards apart. There's a larger Flat Rock Dam that impounds water behind it. And then the smaller Hurok Dam is sort of a low head dam that's downstream.

The Metro Parks owns the Flat Rock Dam, the larger dam, and the City of Flat Rock owns the Hurok Dam, the smaller dam. So they requested that we put in a request for funding to start a feasibility study to explore what options were out there to help with enhancing fish passage within those systems. So that's kind of how it came about.

We actually put in a request for proposals and successfully acquired a grant through NOAA Restoration Center. And so we've got some funding to execute the feasibility study. And the feasibility study really is looking at a range of alternatives that would enhance fish passage and then generate some cost estimates and also looks at the other impacts of each one of those alternatives.

So each one's going to have some level of environmental impact, not only fish passage but other impacts as well. So that's what they kind of work through with a feasibility study.

[Megan Gunn]
Jeff, I will say I'm a little geographically challenged. So could you tell us where the City of Flat Rock is located and just kind of where in the Great Lakes this project is situated?

[Jeff Tyson]
Yeah, absolutely. So I probably skipped over that. The Flat Rock and Hurok Dams are both on the Huron River, which is a fairly large tributary to Western Lake Erie.

So it really flows down from northwest of Detroit, the City of Detroit, all the way down to what we call the Downriver areas, which are areas that are south of Detroit and then flows in right at the very top of Western Lake Erie.

[Megan Gunn]
Thank you. I really appreciate that.

[Jeff Tyson]
Yeah.

[Megan Gunn]
And so you mentioned a little bit about the sea lamprey, but what other fishes use the waterways around there?

[Jeff Tyson]
Sure. The actual proposal itself is targeted at restoring primarily walleye and white bass to the upstream systems. They're largely non-existent upstream because of the restrictions from the dam, but also lake sturgeon are identified.

Now, there are no extant lake sturgeon populations or fish in the river at this point in time, but I think if they had additional access, it might be a suitable river for restoration down the road. So those are the primary targets, but there's a whole host of fish species in that river that would benefit from the connectivity ranging from suckers to some of the smaller cypranids or minnows and even steelhead move up that system.

[Stuart Carlton]
And so the idea based on this study is that they might... So this is a big deal, thinking about it. This actually goes back to a long time, this idea of our relationship with nature, humans' relationship with nature.

And around the 19th and 20th century, the turn of that century was a very command and control kind of scenario. That's when we were building dams and reversing the Chicago River and that sort of thing. And where I'm from in New Orleans, they really started trying to lock the Mississippi River into its flow.

And our relationship with... Our understanding of that is kind of changing, I think. At Sea Grant, we do a lot of stuff now.

We're working on nature-based solutions to shoreline hardening and those sorts of things. And so my understanding is this feasibility study, they're talking about kind of a different approach to maintaining that reservoir. And that's this idea of rock arches.

Tell me about rock arches and what do they do to maintain the reservoir while still being, I guess, more nature-based?

[Jeff Tyson]
Sure. So that actually is one of the alternatives that was explored in the feasibility study. And rock arch rapids are essentially a way to ensure upstream reservoir water levels can be maintained while allowing for fish passage.

So right now, it's whatever, a 15-foot vertical dam face that fish would have to get over. And what the rock arch rapids would essentially do is create an incline of about, well, between one and 5% that fish could actually swim up and place these arches out there. And they've got resting pools and places that adult fish can get in behind to sort of rest and then move on up that stream.

So it's a way to kind of keep a reservoir behind a dam in place, but allow for additional fish passage up through sort of a central thalwag that's created.

[Megan Gunn]
I love that you all are thinking about the fish and their needs. I'm sure most people aren't thinking... I'm sure most people are thinking, okay, well, they will just launch themselves through this passageway, but that's a lot of energy to expend to be fighting against the current.

And so I really like the idea that they have these little resting pools that they can just take a break and then go up a little bit more and take a little break until they get up to where they need to go.

[Jeff Tyson]
Yeah. And that's sort of one of the challenges that we deal with on a lot of these fish passage projects is many, many, many of the fish in the Great Lakes are what we call non-jumping species. So they're not able to jump like a Pacific salmon.

You see the images from out on the West Coast where salmon are piling up over massive falls, walleye, white bass...

[Megan Gunn]
Jumping into bear's mouths.

[Jeff Tyson]
Yeah. Jumping in bear's mouths. Exactly.

Yeah. Walleye and white bass are non-jumping species. So we have to address sort of their non-jumping characteristics.

And the Rock Arch Rapids is one strategy that does that.

[Stuart Carlton]
Excellent. Also, you should look into the salmon cannon just as an FYI. Always worth researching.

So what is jumping though? And there's not a story here, I don't think. But when I hear jumping, because of where we live in the Wabash River system, I think of the invasive carp, right?

Because they are definitely a different type of jumping species, but holy moly, they jump. But we're moving this down. There's no carp story up there, is there?

[Jeff Tyson]
No. No invasive carp. Common carp are ubiquitous throughout the Great Lakes system, but no invasive carp at this point in time.

So, yeah.

[Stuart Carlton]
I didn't figure. So I hear Rock Arch Rapids, and I know this is one of the things recommended. Between recommendation and implementation, there's a lot of steps.

But when I was younger and more nimble, I did a lot of whitewater canoeing. Is there a recreation story with the Rock Arch Rapids too? I don't think you can really, if my understanding of those is you can't really canoe or kayak down them.

But is there a recreation part there?

[Jeff Tyson]
Actually, it will allow for recreational usage, kayaks and canoes. And I've seen several examples in other locales that were not only open to canoes, kayaks, but also had some whitewater features in them, if you will.

[Stuart Carlton]
That makes sense. And so, I mean, that sounds like a lot of wind if you implement something like this, where it's like you're taking what was a dam and replacing it with something that's good for the fish and also enables different types of recreational users. But if you were to put the Devil's Advocate hat on, are there negative trade-offs associated with this?

[Jeff Tyson]
You know, really, there's cost. So every solution is going to cost some amount of funds to implement. And so that's one that we're going to have to address.

It's a change in that environment between the Flat Rock and the Huroc Dam, so it's going to look different. Now, that's either a positive or a negative, but a lot of these things are subjective. But it's definitely going to change the environment for sure.

The Rock Arch Rapids and existence of that reservoir upstream, and I'm speaking strictly from a fisheries biologist standpoint, is, you know, the species we're targeting are used to traveling up flowing systems or loading systems, you know, water flowing. So once they get up the Rock Arch Rapids, they're going to have to navigate the impoundment, the reservoir itself, to get up to more riverine type environments. And we just really don't know from a behavioral standpoint how effective that's going to be.

[Stuart Carlton]
So they can essentially get lost in the reservoir, potentially, or just be ineffective there and maybe more subject to predation or something like that.

[Jeff Tyson]
Or they might turn around and head back down.

[Stuart Carlton]
Oh, they might be like, forget this. This is for the birds.

[Jeff Tyson]
Excellent. But again, you know, that's one of the alternatives that was identified in the feasibility study.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah, that's the one that got me most excited. What's another? Is there another cool alternative in there?

[Jeff Tyson]
Yeah, there's actually four alternatives, if you will, including the Rock Arch Rapids. There is a complete removal alternative that was built out with active and passive restoration. And then there's also installation of nature-like bypass channel around both of those barriers.

So those are the kind of four alternatives that were built out and costed out, at least at the initial level. So go ahead.

[Megan Gunn]
I was going to say, so what's next with these four options? Because it's been, I think you said, voted on recently. Which plan is going to move forward?

[Jeff Tyson]
So we're in the process of essentially supporting the dam owners right now to make an evaluation of the current situation and which alternative might be best for them. So as I said, the City of Flat Rock owns the Huroc Dam. They're in the process of evaluating those alternatives and trying to figure out where they want to go.

Same thing with the Huron-Clinton Metroparks. They're evaluating those alternatives, looking at options. And actually, I think there should be at least a decision here in the next bit about where the Huron-Clinton Metroparks is going to go with the Flat Rock Dam.

[Megan Gunn]
Okay. So if you do decide to go with the Rock Arches plan, which I mean, I love because the pools, the resting, all the things. How long do you think it'll take to see the benefits of the dam working?

Like will the fish kind of immediately start using it or do you think it'll take them a while to realize, oh, I can move from point A to point C now that this B is gone?

[Jeff Tyson]
Yeah. So in my experience with many of these, in particular, dam removal projects, the fish respond really quickly. I was involved in one down in Ohio and we removed the dam in 2018 and had assessment crews out and they were detecting walleye upstream two years following.

So it doesn't take them long and they like to push their nose upstream. That's just what fish do.

[Megan Gunn]
I like it. Are there any other fish passage projects outside of this one in Ohio that have been completed recently or undergoing similar feasibility studies that you would like our listeners to know about?

[Jeff Tyson]
Yeah. There's a whole host of fish passage projects across the basin. We just wrapped one up in Wisconsin on Lake Superior addressing Brook Trout Passage on Navagamon Creek, which is a tributary to the Brewer River, which is one of the bigger trips to Lake Superior.

But I guess one of the other projects that your listeners might be interested in is a project that the Great Lakes Fishery Commission is leading on selected fish passage on the Boardman River, which is up in Traverse City, which the northwestern part of the state on Lake Michigan. A very large project that is actually developing selective fish passage techniques. And so they've re-engineered the dam itself.

Most of the dams upstream of the Union Street Dam, which is a lowermost barrier, have come out. So it's largely a free-flowing system except for the Union Street Dam. And then they've installed a lot of fish passage testing technologies there.

And we're going to be developing sort of strategies for sorting fish and sorting the good ones out and moving them up versus sorting the invasive ones out and not letting them get up there over the next 10 years.

[Stuart Carlton]
No kidding. Is that using like computer stuff or is it like just physical shapes of things?

[Jeff Tyson]
It's a whole host of strategies. I think they're kind of taking a cue from the single stream recycling strategy. So they're using computer-aided visualization and imaging to moving fish around based on behavior and sorting in that fashion.

Some fish swim towards the bottom versus others swim up in the water column and using sound and pheromones and those kinds of things as well to try to sort fish out.

[Stuart Carlton]
I love a good pheromone.

[Megan Gunn]
Technology has come such a long way.

[Stuart Carlton]
It really has. Yeah. And again, don't forget the salmon cannon.

Well, Jeff, this is interesting stuff. I love hearing about all these fish passages. And to me, it's cool about the fish and it's cool about the fishery.

But to me, it's also the story of our changing relationship with nature, I think, which is one reason. And I could talk about this stuff forever because just hearing you use all these words, it brings me right back to grad school. And I'm like, oh yeah, I engage in that.

But that's actually not why we invited you here on Teach Me About the Great Lakes this week. The reason that we invited you on Teach Me About the Great Lakes is to ask you two questions. The first one is this.

If you could have a great donut for breakfast or a great sandwich for lunch, which would it be?

[Jeff Tyson]
Well, that's an easy one. It's a great sandwich for lunch for me.

[Stuart Carlton]
Excellent.

[Jeff Tyson]
My wife would debate that because she's a donut girl.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah. Well, she can come on the show and have that conversation at some point. Today, we're talking to you.

So I'm going to go to Ann Arbor, where the Great Lakes Fishery Commission is, and I'm going to go to Zingerman's for breakfast. So don't send me there. I'm going to wait 45 minutes for a $9 coffee and I'm going to enjoy that.

And then I'm going to go to meetings, I guess, lots of meetings, because that's my life. And then I'm going to want to go for a sandwich. So where should I go to get an amazing sandwich in Ann Arbor?

[Jeff Tyson]
Well, you just said Zingerman's.

[Stuart Carlton]
Going back, baby. Okay. That's the way to go.

[Megan Gunn]
And what I would like to know is what is a special place in the Great Lakes that you'd like to share with our audience? And what makes it special?

[Jeff Tyson]
That's a tough one, because I've got lots of places that are special to me, anyhow. Western Lake Erie holds a special place in my heart, not just because of the walleye and yellow perch fisheries, but I worked on Western Lake Erie for 25 years as a part of the crew that assesses and monitors Lake Erie for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. So it's got a special place for me.

But I also enjoy other places in the Great Lakes, and Waukesha's Point, Wilderness Point, which is up on Northern Lake Michigan, is another place that's absolutely a phenomenal fishery, number one, but just, I mean, it's just visually just amazing up there.

[Stuart Carlton]
Excellent. Excellent. Well, Jeff Tyson, Program Manager for Fisheries Management at the Great Lakes Fishery Commission, doing a lot of important work.

[Megan Gunn]
Absolutely.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah. Thank you so much for coming on and teaching us all about the Great Lakes.

[Jeff Tyson]
Well, thanks for having me.

[Stuart Carlton]
Oh, man. Love a good damn conversation.

[Megan Gunn]
For the listeners, because you can't see us, I am physically shaking my head. Puns. Fish puns.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah, well, the damn thing is, I mean, it's the hackiest whatever, but it's always fun to say damn a bunch and be allowed to say it because of the damn conversation where we're talking about the damn removal.

[Megan Gunn]
And fish passages.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah. And the damn rapids.

And yeah, the fish damn passages and what have you. Hey, we got a few announcements. Tis the season for announcements.

We already talked about the lakeys at the top of the show. Go vote. I'm excited to see how it comes out.

There's a few categories in particular I'm fired up about this year. The big thing is, will the Lake Sturgeon win Great Lakes Animal of the Year? It's probably a multi-time runner up.

It's never won.

[Megan Gunn]
It's a great fish.

[Stuart Carlton]
Well, it's a good fish.

[Megan Gunn]
Okay. It's a really good fish.

[Stuart Carlton]
We'll see. But is it a Lakey Award winner? That's the question.

Now that it's December, it's also Fishmas, right? Do you know about the Fishmas?

[Megan Gunn]
I do know about Fishmas. I was a strong follower on back in the day when it was Twitter.

[Stuart Carlton]
What happened? Did you stop going to the gym?

[Megan Gunn]
No, I just stopped paying attention only because my attention span is only so long.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah, it's because you spend so much time on Twitter. That'll sap it. I'm sorry to quit all that stuff.

But anyways, Fishmas. Dr. Catfish, our own Katie O'Reilly, invasive species person, specialist probably at Illinois Indiana Sea Grant. She talks about Great Lakes, generally Great Lakes fish every day.

But she doesn't just do it like your normal advent calendar, three or four weeks or whatever. She goes all the way through Christmas itself, starting on December 1st. It's a lot.

[Megan Gunn]
25 days.

[Stuart Carlton]
25 days of Fishmas. Reminds me, did you ever hear my song about Fishmas?

[Megan Gunn]
I don't think so.

[Stuart Carlton]
Oh, we'll put a link to that in the show notes. I did that for Ask Dr. Fish a couple of years ago, the 25 days of Fishmas. That'll be in the show notes.

And the other reason I bring that up is starting next year, not this year. Starting next year, Ask Dr. Fish is back, baby.

[Megan Gunn]
I'm excited.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yes. I think we'll probably start in February. I'm not sure we're going to do some, we'll have a big announcement later.

But since you're listening now, we'll preview it. We're going to do every month, not every other month. We're going monthly on Ask Dr. Fish. We're doubling down, literally.

[Megan Gunn]
Give me this Christmas.

[Stuart Carlton]
It's as exciting. And so, yeah, we got this. We got the Lakeys coming up, and then we're going to take a long winter's nap before coming back in January.

Who knows what we'll talk about then. The winter, I always like to talk about shipwrecks, so we may find some shipwreck conversation.

[Megan Gunn]
Yeah. The cold really does the ships in.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah.

[Megan Gunn]
But also keeps them preserved.

[Stuart Carlton]
Too much cold.

[Megan Gunn]
Too much cold.

[Stuart Carlton]
Teach Me About the Great Lakes is brought to you by the fine people at Illinois Indiana Sea Grant. We encourage you to check out the cool stuff we do at iiseagrant.org and at ILINseaGrant on Facebook, the old blue ski, and other social media.

[Megan Gunn]
Our senior producer is Carolyn Foley, and Teach Me About the Great Lakes is produced by Megan the Lake Lover Gunn, and Remy Miles. Ethan Chitty is our associate producer and fixer, and our coordinated producer is Moti Okumbiade. Our super fun podcast artwork is by Joel Davenport, and the show is edited by the lovely Sandra Sabota.

[Stuart Carlton]
If you have a question or comment about the show, a nice comment, please email us at teachmeaboutthegreatlakes at gmail.com. Last email we got, people were still in an uproar about this surfing Malibu, the Midwest thing. So if you want to talk about that, send us an email.

teachmeaboutthegreatlakes at gmail.com. We leave a message on our hotline. We'll play it on the air if you want.

We don't care. Just don't, um,

[Megan Gunn]
We'd love to play it.

[Stuart Carlton]
We would love to play it on the air.

Don't make us believe you. But anyway, that's 765-496-IISG. If you have one of those old car phones, it's 4474.

You're gonna use the little letters. Anyway, you can send us a postcard if you want to. We love postcards.

[Megan Gunn]
You can send them to 195 Marcellus Street, West Lafayette, in 47907.

[Stuart Carlton]
That's right, West Lafayette.

[Megan Gunn]
Yes, that is where we are located.

In the midst of Indiana. Far from the lake. But we get there.

[Stuart Carlton]
Thanks for listening. Keep creating those lakes.