For a Brief, Shining Moment, America Had a Sixth Great Lake

In the late 1990s, the United States government made a discovery so bold, so audacious, and so quietly alarming that it only remained true for a matter of days.

For a short window in March 1998, Lake Champlain was officially classified as a Great Lake.

Not metaphorically. Not poetically. Not in the sense of “you had to be there.” Legally. Federally. In black-and-white statutory language, right alongside Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario.

For a brief and awkward span of time, there were six Great Lakes, and one of them was sitting smugly between Vermont and New York wondering how this escalated so quickly.

Lake Champlain Is Large, Important, and Bad at Geography Contests

To be clear, Lake Champlain is not a puddle that wandered out of its lane. It is a genuinely impressive body of water: roughly 120 miles long, touching both the United States and Canada, central to regional commerce, ecology, and history. It even played a meaningful role in the American Revolution, which is more than most lakes can put on a résumé.

What it has never been, however, is part of the Great Lakes system. The five Great Lakes are hydrologically connected, carved by the same glacial processes, and drain through the St. Lawrence River. Champlain, meanwhile, empties north into the Richelieu River and then into the St. Lawrence by a route that is geographically polite but clearly separate.

This distinction matters to geographers. It mattered rather less to Congress in 1998.

How a Lake Becomes “Great” (According to Congress)

The reclassification happened not Lake Champlain did the opposite of the Louisiana lake that abruptly disappeared overnight, but because of how federal legislation works when no one is particularly paying attention.

In early 1998, a transportation funding bill moved through Congress carrying a small but consequential line of text. That line designated Lake Champlain as a Great Lake for the purposes of federal programs, making it eligible for environmental research and restoration funds previously limited to the existing Great Lakes.

The provision was championed by New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who understood something crucial about legislation: definitions are often just doors with locks on them. Call something a “Great Lake,” and money flows. Call it something else, and it does not.

The bill passed. The president signed it. And just like that, the United States had quietly amended both geography and common sense.

The Midwest Notices Something Is Very Wrong

The reaction from the Great Lakes states was swift and unamused.

Officials in Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, and beyond pointed out—some politely, others less so—that Lake Champlain was not connected to the Great Lakes, did not share their watershed, and was separated from them by several states and a considerable amount of denial.

Lake Champlain doesn’t even come close to being in the same category as the Great Lakes in terms of sheer size: the five Great Lakes are gargantuan inland seas measured in tens of thousands of square miles, dwarfing pretty much every other body of water in the United States. By contrast, Champlain clocks in around 490 sq mi of surface area, which puts it way down the list of U.S. lakes. In fact, it sits behind lakes that are #6 through #11 by area — Iliamna Lake, Great Salt Lake, Lake Okeechobee, Lake Oahe, Lake Pontchartrain, and Lake Sakakawea — so claiming Champlain is “almost a Great Lake” is like saying Full Metal Jacket is almost a 1950s musical. Those other lakes may grumble about being lesser known, but they at least outsize Champlain on paper.

This was not mere regional jealousy. Billions of dollars in environmental funding had long been tied to the Great Lakes designation, and states that had spent decades dealing with industrial pollution, invasive species, and shipping impacts were not thrilled to see a newcomer wander in through a legislative side door.

Maps were consulted. Hydrologists cleared their throats. Someone, somewhere, probably said, “You can’t just decide a lake is Great.”

Congress, to its credit, listened.

The Fastest Demotion in American Natural History

Within days, lawmakers amended the law. Even faster than when the goverment reversed its decision to make sliced bread illegal.

Eighteen days after its promotion, Lake Champlain was quietly stripped of its Great Lake designation. The official count returned to five. The posters could stay on the walls. The textbooks did not need revision.

But—and this is the important part—the funding stayed.

Congress adjusted the language so that Lake Champlain would still qualify for federal environmental programs without requiring it to cosplay as Lake Erie. Everyone saved face. No one had to explain to fourth graders why the Great Lakes chant had suddenly gained three extra syllables.

Lake Champlain went back to being what it had always been: large, historically rich, environmentally significant, and no longer involved in a constitutional crisis of limnology.

What This Says About Power, Paperwork, and Reality

The Lake Champlain episode is a perfect little parable about how modern governance works.

Legislators cannot change tectonic plates or glacial history, but it can, briefly, redefine reality on paper, such as when Illinois officially stopped time from moving so the White Sox wouldn’t leave Chicago. For a few days in 1998, Lake Champlain wasn’t pretending to be a Great Lake. It was one, because the law said so.

This did not fool scientists. It did not persuade maps. It did, however, unlock resources without anyone having to stop and think about it.

In the end, Lake Champlain didn’t need to be Great to matter. It only needed someone willing to exploit the strange alchemy of legislative language.

The Great Lakes kept their club intact. And Congress demonstrated, once again, that while it cannot move mountains, it can temporarily misfile them.

---