[Stuart Carlton]
Teach me about the Great Lakes. Teach me about the Great Lakes.

[Megan Gunn]
Welcome back to Teach Me About the Great Lakes, a twice-ish monthly podcast where we find people that are smarter and harder working than us to teach us all about the Great Lakes. My name is Megan Gunn and I'm an aquatic education associate with Illinois Indiana Sea Grant and I know a lot about how it is just super cold in the mornings and we've gone straight from summer to winter and I'm not ready for it yet. But I don't know a lot about the Great Lakes and that is what this here podcast is for.

I'm joined here today by Natty. Natty, how are you doing?

[Natty Morrison]
I'm doing great. I agree. It was 39 degrees this morning and now it's hot, I was sweating through my sweater today so.

[Megan Gunn]
I did not dress for this hot weather. I dressed for it being freezing this morning but.

[Natty Morrison]
Yeah, whatever, however I feel in any given moment is how I'll feel forever is what I assume.

[Megan Gunn]
It'll never change.

[Natty Morrison]
Emotional, emotional and physical permanence until I die.

[Megan Gunn]
I love it. I'm in the same boat. But we are, we're not here to talk about the weather today or maybe we are, I don't know.

But we are joined, we're going to learn a lot about another podcast, a podcast that was a Lakey award winner last year which I'm super excited about. And we're joined here by Jeff Cart. Welcome Jeff.

[Jeff Cart]
Hello, how you doing?

[Megan Gunn]
Good, how are you?

[Jeff Cart]
Good.

I don't know about smarter and harder working but I'll try to do my best.

[Megan Gunn]
Okay, well whatever you can give us is what we will take.

[Natty Morrison]
Live up to the standards that we've set for you.

[Jeff Cart]
Okay.

[Megan Gunn]
So let's, let's just jump right into it. Who is Jeff Cart and how did Mr. Great Lakes come to be?

[Jeff Cart]
So Jeff Cart is a recovering journalist who used to work at a newspaper that published seven days a week. And, you know, people would wait for it to come out in the morning to see what was going on. And even the TV news people would get it.

So they would know what was going on, you know, back in the good old days. So I did that newspaper thing for 14 years. And the last beat I had was the environment, which was like a whole new thing.

Like I didn't even want to do it. I was, I started out as a city hall reporter. Then I was a county government reporter.

And I just, I knew my way around those places really well. And, and my, my boss's boss was a quote unquote environmentalist with a, with a big fancy sailboat. And he was always wanting to do an environmental beat back at the newspaper.

There used to be one at the newspaper, but they had dropped it. So they come to me and they said, Jeff, we want you to be the environment reporter. And I said, no, I don't know.

I don't know anything. I don't know anything about the environment. I, I know city and county politics, and I don't know anything about this.

And anyway, I said, okay, I'll do it. And, you know, did a lot of like training and fellowships. And I got really good at it.

I was, I was kicking butt. I was at a little newspaper, the Bay City Times, which was part of like a eight newspaper chain across Michigan. And you can look it up.

I was, I was pretty, pretty, I was doing, I was doing good. I was making, you know, making the AP wire and stuff, breaking news right out of Bay City. And I really, I really loved the job.

It was, it was great. It was a whole new thing to me. And I had to like learn it from the ground up.

And like I said, I went to a bunch of fellowships and I just really got into it. I'm like, I, this is like a niche for me, you know, and obviously I live in Bay City, right by Lake Huron, Saginaw Bay. So God, I should care about this stuff.

And, you know, the more I looked into it, the more I cared and thought it was really interesting. And just, I love being like a specialty, having like a specialty beat. There weren't a lot of environmental reporters, et cetera, et cetera.

And then, you know, the newspaper went to pot pretty much. You know, we went from, went from seven days a week to five days a week to a real nice hearty staff to just a, you know, like a few handful of people. And, and I had, I had been writing like a column.

So we, like the paper had sort of, you know, downsized its print editions and gone online and everything. So I started a column called the Mud Puppy. It was like an online, it was a blog, which it was so long ago that you had to explain it, you know, a blog as in a web blog, as in a, you know, a diary of sorts, you know, that sort of thing.

So I had this blog called the Mud Puppy and I would just write about Great Lakes environmental issues and Saginaw Bay environmental issues and all that stuff. And then the paper got downsized so much that they were going to eliminate the environment beat. And I just, I didn't want to, they wanted me to go back to covering city government and county government.

And I already had some like side gigs writing for like Tree Hugger and the Discovery Channel and some other, back then there was like, you could make a living like doing like blogging. So I had like a handful of little side gigs and I was making okay money on the side. So I was able to leave the paper.

So I left the paper. I started doing freelance and I actually, you know, ended up picking up a full-time job that lasted me 14 years. Anyway, but before I picked up that full-time job that lasted me 14 years, I had left the paper.

I was doing a little freelancing and I had had this like mud puppy thing going on. Right. And I, all of a sudden, Jeff's not doing the mud puppy anymore.

What the hell am I supposed to do? Right. I was freelancing, but I'm not writing about local issues or Great Lakes issues really.

Just doing a lot of environmental reporting. So I'm, you know, sitting at lunch one day and just complaining to my wife, because I'm like a born newspaper reporter. I just like to have the curiosity and the attitude and the drive.

I just, that's just, you know, I've just, that's what, I mean, I have a reports notebook right here. I'm not even a reporter anymore. Right.

So, so I just said, I miss this blogging and all this daily interaction with people and writing about environmental stuff. Anyway. So I came up with the idea of Mr. Great Lakes and it wasn't taken. Right. So I looked up the URL. It wasn't taken.

I'm like, yes, I'll do that. So I started and I started this, I was looking back and started in like June, 2010, June, 2010, something like that. And I left the paper in April.

I left the paper in April.

[Megan Gunn]
That's a long time.

[Jeff Cart]
So a couple months went by, kind of got the itch again. I wanted to, you know, do what I had to do with the paper. So I just, I just started doing it for the hell of it on the side.

And, um, the local radio station, the local NPR station, uh, at the local community college, Delta college said, Hey, Jeff, because they know me because I was a reporter for a long time. Um, man about town, you have a face for radio. You have a good voice.

Why don't you do a, why don't you do a, you know, little thing? Like they, they just made up that we'll say, we'll call it the environment report. You could do like a little, you know, short segment every week.

Just, you know, kind of what you've been doing on the blog, kind of what you did for the paper. Just do that. I'm like, Nope, I don't want to do that.

I don't know anything about radio. I don't want to do that. But I have my wife's like, come on, do it.

So anyway, I do it. I started doing it and I've been doing it ever since I do it. Like I do it like once a week usually.

And it's just like, you know, three minutes long. Occasionally I'll interview people, but usually it's just like me going out and just gathering stuff and putting together a script and rattling off three stories. And you know, it's funny because this tells you about newspapers.

People don't read them anymore or they read them. It's not as much as they used to. They're not.

And plus, plus the quality is so bad. They really have, don't have as many reasons. Can you hear my dog?

They don't have as many reasons to, they don't have as many reasons to read the newspaper. There's not an, there's not really like an environmental, there's not a lot of good environmental coverage in the newspaper anymore. So people to this day think that that's my job, Mr. Great Lakes. Like it's my full-time job. Like, like the locals, like, like the local station says, Hey Jeff, you know, you just work three minutes a week and you're all set. You know, you can get 401k and a good, no, I just, it's about, I just volunteer.

I do it as a volunteer. I just do it because I just, I like staying, staying abreast of the issues. You know, I just kind of want to like keep my feet wet as like a quote unquote, you know, reporter, quote unquote journalist.

I'm not, I'm not that anymore. My day job is as a grants manager at a civil engineering firm, which is, you know, kind of like, kind of like journalism and Jason, I'm going out and doing research and stuff. But anyway, so I wanted to kind of keep up the, I mean, I learned all this stuff and I've been following it all these years.

I have all these contacts and I started, I started doing it anyway. So now there's like nobody that covers the environment and if they do, they don't do it very well. So I just do my best to like once a week, come up with a few things going on around town or going out in the great lakes and you know, go to the station and record it.

And that's not my full-time job, but it's people all the time. Mr. Jeff, Mr. Great Lakes, how's it going? You know, because they don't pay attention.

They think I still work at the paper or something, or I'm still a full-time journalist, or they think maybe that Mr. Great Lakes is such a big deal that that's my full-time job. But it's not, it's just a little thing I keep like a hobby. It's like a hobby.

[Megan Gunn]
Yeah. For them to think that you've still been at the newspaper for another 16 years, it's crazy.

[Jeff Cart]
They do. They do. No, they do.

They do. They think I still work at the paper. So they're not, they're not, you know, they're not paying attention.

They're not reading the paper anymore. Right. They don't even know I don't work there anymore.

So anyway.

[Natty Morrison]
The readers never read the bylines. You know, they just assume that it's, that you're just a representative. Jeff, what is it about the Great Lakes that has kept you interested all these years?

[Jeff Cart]
First of all, it's like, it's just because I care about the future and the future my kids will have. But also it's just because, I don't know, it's like, it's like a part of me. It's like where I live, where I grew up.

I grew up like down, down by Detroit and spent summers fishing in Lake Erie. And now I live in Bay City and I, you know, spend time. It's the place-based part of it.

[Megan Gunn]
Yeah.

[Jeff Cart]
It's just like a place-based part of it. I just, it's just, it's the kids and the future. And it's also just like where I live.

And, and it's so just like, I just think there's like so many things connected to the Great Lakes, you know, from, from climate change to where we get our drinking water. I love to say like, I'll have some, I'll have some Saginaw Bay, you know, the restaurant and say, I'll have some Saginaw Bay water. I'll have a cup of Saginaw Bay water.

But we don't have, we don't have, we don't have that. Like, where do you think the water comes from? I'm just being, I'm being absurd.

I'll tell you a really quick story. When I first started on the Environment Beat, like I said, I didn't know anything about it, right? I didn't even want to do it, but I reluctantly agreed.

So I go over to the DEQ, which is the Department of Environmental Quality. It's, that's not even what it's called anymore, but it's like the State Environmental Agency. And this, I meet with this, one of the guys, one of the people over there.

And he's telling me about dihydrogen monoxide.

[Megan Gunn]
Okay.

[Jeff Cart]
What? He's like, oh yeah, the Saginaw Bay is full of it. It's a really big issue.

And so I'm taking notes. Dihydrogen monoxide is H2O. I'm taking notes on this.

And I'm like, what? This guy's giving me the, he's giving me the scoop. Yeah.

[Megan Gunn]
Yeah. My brain was not processing that. You can see it's still early in the week.

Is there, okay. So that, I mean, that's part of why we do a lot of the work that we do, at least on the education side. Cause once you get people to understand the issues that are around them, they're going to try to protect it more, right?

Because they have that better knowledge. Is there any story that you've covered over the last 16 plus years that's really stuck with you?

[Jeff Cart]
Beach Monk.

[Megan Gunn]
Tell us more.

[Jeff Cart]
We still have a problem.

I live in Bay City, but there's really no beach here, which is ridiculous. We have a beautiful state park and it's a great place, but the beach is usually so bad that you can't barely use it. And they've done lots of things to try to keep it up, but there's just an ongoing problem with muck.

And like muck was my passion when I was a reporter, I would just write story after story about it. And people are like, yeah, how come it's, you know, how come this is a problem? And they ended up banning like phosphorus based fertilizers and they ended up establishing like a regular beach cleanup.

And they, and they, and they cleared some of the vegetation, which probably didn't help with the muck. But anyway it got to be a really big issue. And I remember even getting, I got an MSU scientist to come out here, Joan Rose, I got her to come out here and test the muck.

And they found like feces from people and animals. So the lead was the muck is a little bit of us. Oh God.

So it's, I mean, it's just, it's a, it's still, it's still a problem when the water levels, when the water levels go up, it's a little better, but it's still like this ongoing problem. And I remember once getting the state even like established this like task force to look into the muck on Saginaw Bay and other, and other beaches. And I remember the DEQ director coming to town with his, you know, shiny shoes and everything and doing a press conference.

I'm like, okay, now that your press conference is done, let's walk down to the beach. I want you to walk down to the beach with me. I want you to see how close you can get to the beach.

And you couldn't get, I mean, the muck was like, I, I, there was one time I took my dad to the beach and I said, dad, if you can get to the beach, I'll give you five bucks. And he's like, my dad, of course, well, why wouldn't I be able to try to walk to the beach? Cause I was trying to say like, this is terrible.

He's like, oh, it doesn't look that bad. I'm like, no, this is terrible. My dad walked about three or four feet out.

He was stuck to his, up to his knees in the muck and lost his shoe.

[Megan Gunn]
Oh my God.

[Natty Morrison]
It's probably still there to this day.

[Jeff Cart]
I literally with one pant leg covered in muck and a $5 bill in his hand because he lost the bet, but it's still a problem. It's still a problem. And that just is, that just sticks to me. And it just, it, it, it makes me angry.

[Megan Gunn]
Yeah. So for our regular listeners, what is, what is muck besides, I guess, human feces and fish species, what does muck consist of?

[Jeff Cart]
It is, it is a excess algae that just grows out in the Bay and washes ashore and just rots, carries a lot, carries a lot of stuff with it. Yeah.

[Megan Gunn]
Yeah.

[Jeff Cart]
It's mostly cladophora.

[Megan Gunn]
Okay.

[Jeff Cart]
And it's just from, it's just from excess nutrients out in the Bay that wash in and Saginaw Bay is very shallow. So when, when you look at the thermometer, you can like look at weather reports. Like last summer I was on the Bay and the, the, the water was like 82 degrees.

I'm like, that's not regular. You know, shouldn't be that, shouldn't be that warm. So like you got, you got the shallow Bay, you got the invasive muscles that have cleared the water columns.

So the light can penetrate, you got the excess nutrients helping the algae grow. You got the algae washing the shore. There's a lot of different, a lot of different factors.

But one, one, one factor, which I think I've never been able to prove this, but I've written about it and people like speculating whether it can be true is that the Saginaw River comes out and kind of swirls to the West, right where like the beach is, right where the Saginaw Bay starts, right where the state park is, right where most people recreate. And that's, that's one of the things it's, you know, it's the, all the runoff from the river, you know, the shallow Bay, the warmer water, the excess nutrients and things like that.

[Natty Morrison]
Jeff, what's one Great Lakes issue or maybe several Great Lakes issues that you just think aren't getting enough attention right now?

[Jeff Cart]
All of them. I mean, there's nobody, nobody covers the environment anymore. I mean, if it's, if it's like super hot one day, maybe you'll get a climate change story that's, you know, 90 seconds long or something.

Or if there's a protest about, you know, climate change, you might get something or, you know, if a new invasive species is found, you might, you might get something. Nothing, nothing gets enough attention, I don't think. But one of the reasons I really like living in Saginaw Bay is there's so much going on here.

It's the largest watershed of Michigan, drains 22 counties. There's been some really cool efforts by a group called the Saginaw Bay Watershed Initiative Network, Saginaw Bay Watershed Initiative Network, Saginaw Bay WIN. And they've been introducing, reintroducing sturgeon, little baby sturgeon.

It's really cool. They raise them and then they have like kids release them into the, into the Bay. And it's been going on for years and years and years.

And they're starting to like establish like a, they think they'll be able to establish like a native population of sturgeon. It's a really cool project.

[Megan Gunn]
Our friends at Michigan Sea Grant are also working on some of those projects too. So it's exciting to see that all of these pieces are connected.

[Jeff Cart]
And they've done a reef restoration in the Bay and, you know, a lot of cool stuff. Yeah. So things that aren't getting covered, nothing is not, nothing is being covered well enough for Mr. Great Lakes. I don't think, I'm just scratching the surface.

[Megan Gunn]
Yeah. I wonder if some of it's like just people, there's not enough people that are interested in hearing it, or if it's just not enough people that are able to cover it. Like there, cause there's just so many things that are going on all over.

[Jeff Cart]
I think I worked for International Joint Commission for a bunch of years, 14 years, which is a U.S. Canadian organization that deals with IJC. Okay. Yeah.

So I worked for them for a bunch of years and I know that people care, but it's just, most people don't know what to do. They don't know where to get the information. It's, you know.

[Megan Gunn]
They need the action behind it.

[Jeff Cart]
They need, they need the, you know, there's, there's, there's, you know, there's things like Great Lakes Now and Bridge Michigan is doing a pretty good job. They're all, I mean, but it's just, it's not like a regular conversation. I think that like people really care about it.

It's just, they don't have access to the information and there's no like dedicated, you know, it's not like, it's not like part of the journalism mission anymore or whatever. It's just not like, it's not a beat at the newspaper anymore. You know, it was for a while, but I just don't think it is these days.

Right.

[Megan Gunn]
Am I wrong? I don't know. I think you're absolutely right.

[Jeff Cart]
That's why I got like a little three minute podcast and like people like, Oh, wow.

[Megan Gunn]
Episode 108 of Teach Me About the Great Lakes. We had on Dr. Rebecca Rooney and Eden Hadley came on from IJC to talk to us about microplastics and some other things. So I'm pretty sure we have more episodes with IJC people, but that's one of the, that's one of the more recent ones, I guess, more recent in 2025.

We also had in 2023, we had on Heather Stewart, who was the director, at least at that point was the director of IJC. So you all.

[Jeff Cart]
Oh yeah, I know. I know. I used to work with her.

[Megan Gunn]
108 in episode 90 to learn more about all the good work that the International Joint Commission is doing. Yeah.

[Jeff Cart]
Yeah, absolutely.

[Megan Gunn]
So we, okay. So we've got all these challenges and all these things that are happening, but is there anything that, that still gives you hope?

[Jeff Cart]
There's, there's, there's, there's still people who care. We still have the Great Lakes restoration initiative. There's still like, you know, people still know the value of the Great Lakes, including politicians.

So I think it'll continue. The government will continue to spend money on it, maybe more in coming years than they have in recent years. But I mean, I think there's still hope.

And I think, I think that climate change is going to get really bad. I think there's going to be a lot of more consequences of climate change and people will get, you know, we'll realize how important the Great Lakes and Great Lakes issues are. They need to pay attention to them.

And there needs to be, you know, more regulations about around X, Y, and Z, you know, like, like this whole microplastics thing. It's just, I was thinking about it, like, there was the deal with PCBs and dioxins and all these companies that were like, you know, held to clean this stuff up. You put this pollution on a watershed, you got to clean it up, you know, this auto company and this chemical company.

And it's the same thing with microplastics now, but for years, it's just been like, oh, well, I don't know. They're just a lot of microplastics. It seems like someday they'll, they'll crack down on that, I would hope.

And they'll start to like, you know, connect those to certain manufacturers and have those, what do they call that? EPR, you know, where the manufacturers have to take responsibility for the stuff that they're doing. What's it called?

[Megan Gunn]
I don't know. I know what you're talking about.

[Jeff Cart]
Extended producer responsibility, maybe something like that. That's what it's called, but it's like a whole concept. They have it in Europe.

They have it in some states, probably in California, where if you're a manufacturer, you have to account for like what happens to your product after it goes out, you know, after you make the shirt that lasts for, you know, eight months, what happens to it? So I guess that gives me hope. I guess that gives me hope that things will get worse and people will start paying more attention.

[Megan Gunn]
It's understandable that you're cynical because you've spent all these years trying to find the bad that's happening so that people can know about it.

[Jeff Cart]
I'm happy to write about the good too, you know, I'm happy to speak about the good too.

[Megan Gunn]
But people have to know about what's happening, the negative stuff, so that they can make a change.

[Jeff Cart]
And you know, that also, like I said, there has to be like more broader, like industry-wide, government-wide changes. This whole like, what can you do? Well, I can't really do much, you know, but if the utilities are made to do this and the auto manufacturers are made to do this, et cetera, et cetera, the companies are made to do this, and that makes a bigger, much bigger difference than just the whole like, what can you do, Megan?

What about you, Ned? You know, you need to recycle more. Okay.

[Megan Gunn]
It's only so much. Individually, we can make some change, but collectively, like we've got to have the bigger institutions involved for sure.

[Jeff Cart]
Yes, yes, yes.

[Natty Morrison]
Jeff, what are you still curious about? Are there any topics that you want to cover and just have not had the opportunity to do so yet?

[Jeff Cart]
I was thinking about the microplastics thing that I, the whole getting after the manufacturers who were putting all these things into our environment, including like the microfibers, you know, that wash out your clothes and stuff like that. There's just, there's a lot of stuff I'd love to dig into more. It's just like, it's kind of like a little side hustle for me, a little kind of like a hobby just that I think is, you know, stuff that's important and I try to keep track of it, you know, use some of my same old sources from the newspaper days that I keep in touch with and, you know, just to get the stuff out there because people aren't, you know, people aren't paying attention and newspapers and news organizations aren't prioritizing environmental coverage. So yeah, things I'm more curious about, yeah, microplastics is one.

[Natty Morrison]
And I do think that like that is an important role that podcasts like yours and other similar ones, you know, that's the role they play is, you know, the best you can do is to, you know, amplify the voices and the initiatives that are going on and bring, you know, awareness to it as best you can. And it's kind of up to the constituents and as well as the, you know, those in power to actually, you know, to see the change happening and try to make some changes before things get too bad.

[Jeff Cart]
I'm really curious if AI will have like a positive or negative effect on the environment, you know, this, all this concern about data centers and, but also all it could do to help, you know, solve problems and crunch numbers and data and help, you know, figure out different, I've been, I've had a few things on Mr. Great Lakes about like weather forecasting and helping people become more resilient and more prepared for storms and stuff. And they use AI to like make better predictions than these other models were able to, or even like historical data has been able to in the past.

It's kind of interesting. So I'm more curious about that. If it doesn't kill us,

[Natty Morrison]
it's got to make us stronger, right?

[Megan Gunn]
The robots don't take over.

[Jeff Cart]
Yeah.

[Megan Gunn]
Well this, so where can, where can people find, find out more about the work that you do?

[Jeff Cart]
So it's just, it's mrgreatlakes.com.

[Megan Gunn]
Mrgreatlakes.com.

[Jeff Cart]
Mrgreatlakes.com. Awesome. Yeah.

And it's on Delta College Public Radio.

[Megan Gunn]
Sweet.

[Jeff Cart]
So, and that's, that's near Bay City, Michigan. It's University Center, Michigan. But it's, it airs at, I want to say it airs at 645 and 845 in the morning every Friday.

[Megan Gunn]
You are.

[Jeff Cart]
645 and 845 Friday mornings. They have like morning edition, I think they still call it. So I'm on there for a few minutes every Friday.

I need to put something together for this Friday. Okay.

[Megan Gunn]
Well, maybe, maybe Microplastics and Data Centers. This has been wonderful. This has been fantastic to learn more about Mr. Great Lakes and the man behind Mr. Great Lakes, Chef Cart. The mister behind Mr. Great Lakes.

[Jeff Cart]
The mister behind Great Lakes.

[Megan Gunn]
But this is not why we brought you on to this here podcast. The reason that we brought you on to teach me about the Great Lakes is to ask you two questions. That one of those questions is if you could choose to have a great donut, I love that your face was like, what the heck is going on?

[Natty Morrison]
It's not a gotcha moment, don't worry.

[Megan Gunn]
No, it's not a gotcha. If you could choose to have a great donut for breakfast or a great sandwich for lunch, which would you choose and why?

[Jeff Cart]
I would choose a sandwich.

[Megan Gunn]
Okay.

[Jeff Cart]
Because I like sandwiches and because Bay City is like the land of big portions. And if I'm going to get something to eat, it's going to be a sandwich as opposed to a donut. I mean, a donut, all donuts are the same, pretty much.

A sandwich, the possibilities are endless.

[Megan Gunn]
Okay. So when we make our road trip up to Bay City to visit you, to visit our friends in Michigan, where should we go to get a great sandwich?

[Jeff Cart]
The Wannigan. The Wannigan Deli in Bay City. They're by one of the bridges that is closed for construction for like the next 80 years.

I'm not exaggerating, but there's a bridge closed for construction and they're rebuilding and it's taken years and years and years. So the Wannigan's right by that bridge. So they could use people to eat more of their sandwiches.

They have a sandwich called the Question Mark, which has liver pate on it, which I love. Question Mark is Question Mark and the Mysterians, 96 tiers, a band that was like out of Bay City. They had a number one hit.

[Natty Morrison]
Michigan Legends.

[Jeff Cart]
They have a sandwich named after Question Mark called the Question Mark. And that's one of my favorite sandwiches. It's like liver pate, Russian dressing, Swiss cheese, similar stuff.

[Megan Gunn]
I found it on the menu.

[Jeff Cart]
I could talk about sandwiches for a while if you want.

[Megan Gunn]
For a whole nother episode.

[Jeff Cart]
We could do a whole podcast on sandwiches.

[Natty Morrison]
All right. And our second question for you, what is a special place in the Great Lakes that you'd like to share with our audience and what makes it so special?

[Jeff Cart]
Okay. Just all of Lake Huron because Lake Michigan gets too much love. I love, Lake Huron does not get enough love.

I especially like Oscoda. The whole Oscoda area is just a beautiful area. There's trails, there's a public beach, there's a bandshell.

It used to be where Wurtsmith Air Force Base was located there and many, many, many more thousands and thousands of people live there. The base is closed now, but the little community is still there. It's a beautiful place.

The beaches there are like the ocean. I'm not kidding. You get out of Bay City, no offense.

You go up the shoreline and it's what could be. It's this beautiful, sandy beaches, Lake Huron side. They call it the sunrise side.

Yeah, the sunrise side. And I've spent many, many weeks and weekends in Oscoda with my family. So that's a really, really good memory.

The kids and the grandparents and all that stuff. Oscoda's a great place. The whole Lake Huron side.

Come to Lake Huron.

[Megan Gunn]
Well, thank you, Jeff, for joining us and for teaching us all about the Great Lakes. Natty, well, that was great learning all about how the Great Lakes has developed and come about. What new thing did you learn today?

[Natty Morrison]
I learned about the muck. I learned about the muck. It sounds disgusting.

It's got a gross name. It rhymes with a word that we can't say on air here.

[Megan Gunn]
Oh, not at all.

[Natty Morrison]
And yeah, it definitely seems like an ongoing issue. So yeah, definitely learned about that. How about you, Megan?

[Megan Gunn]
I learned that you can find your passion at any stage and age in life. I work with mostly youth and try to get them excited about the environment early on and teach them about all the things that we need to care about early on. But people find out about it at any age and can still go and make a change and share that awareness with others.

So that was that is what I learned today.

[Natty Morrison]
Absolutely. Yeah.

[Megan Gunn]
We are going to be recording the Lakeys in December and we'll be advertising that very soon here. If you all want to recommend a podcast or an article or a I don't know, maybe your favorite song that's related to the Great Lakes that we should be, that should win a Lakey, let us know.

[Natty Morrison]
Teach Me About the Great Lakes is brought to you by the fine people of Illinois Indiana Sea Grant. We encourage you to check out the cool stuff we do at iicgrant.org and at ilincgrant on Facebook, Blue Sky, YouTube and other social media.

[Megan Gunn]
Teach Me About the Great Lakes is produced by Megan the Lake Lover Gun and Natty the Hose Morrison. Ethan Chitty is our associate producer and fixer and our coordinating producer is Ava Hale. Our super fun podcast artwork is by Joel Davenport and the show is edited by Ray Wallace.

[Natty Morrison]
If you have a question or comment about the show, please email it to teachmeaboutthegreatlakes at gmail.com or leave a message on our hotline at 765-496-IISG that's 4474 that number again 765-496-4474 or if you want to send us a postcard. We love postcards.

[Megan Gunn]
Thanks for listening and keep grading those lakes.