Green Bay (Lake Michigan)
Green Bay (Lake Michigan)
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Green Bay (Lake Michigan)

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Green Bay (Lake Michigan)

Green Bay is an arm of Lake Michigan, located along the south coast of Michigan's Upper Peninsula and the east coast of Wisconsin. It is separated from the rest of the lake by the Door Peninsula in Wisconsin, the Garden Peninsula in Michigan, and the chain of islands between them, all formed by the Niagara Escarpment. Green Bay is some 120 miles (193 km) long, with a width ranging from about 10 to 20 miles (16 to 32 km); it is 1,626 square miles (4,210 km2) in area.

At the southern end of the bay is the city of Green Bay, Wisconsin, where the Fox River enters the bay. The Leo Frigo Memorial Bridge (formerly known as the Tower Drive bridge) spans the point where the bay begins and the Fox River ends, as the river flows south to north into the bay. Around mid-bay are Sturgeon Bay and the Peshtigo River. The Sturgeon Bay serves the city named after the bay as a shortcut for large ships to use to bypass the Door Peninsula, while the Peshtigo River serves Peshtigo and Crivitz. Locally, the bay is called the Bay of Green Bay to distinguish it from the city.

The bay is located in parts of five counties in Wisconsin (Brown, Door, Kewaunee, Marinette, Oconto), and two in Michigan (Delta, Menominee).

Oconto is home to Copper Culture State Park, which has remains dated to around 5000-6000 BC. It is a burial ground of the Copper Culture Indians. This burial ground is considered to be the oldest cemetery in Wisconsin and one of the oldest in the nation. The Ho-Chunk believe that they were created on the shores of Green Bay at a place called Red Banks.

The French Jesuit, Roman Catholic priest, and missionary, Father Claude-Jean Allouez said the first Mass in Oconto on December 3, 1669.

The bay was named la baie des Puants (literally, "the bay of the Stinks") by the French explorer Jean Nicolet as shown on many French maps of the 17th and 18th centuries. According to George R. Stewart, the French received the name from their Indian guides, who called the Ho-Chunk living near Green Bay by a derogatory word meaning "Stinkers", thus the bay was the "Bay of the Stinkers". This name perplexed the French, and Jacques Marquette thought the name might relate to the smell of the swamps when he explored the area in May 1673. His fellow explorer Louis Joliet, with two canoes and five voyageurs of French-Indian ancestry (Métis) were on their way to find the Mississippi River. They travelled up the Fox River, nearly to its headwaters. The French also called the bay Baie Verte, and the English kept this name as Green Bay. The name of the bay in the Menominee language is Pūcīhkit, or "bay that smells like something rotting".

In 1671 and 1673, Louis André and Jacques Marquette described fluctuations in the water level of the bay and discussed what they thought caused them.

Ferromanganese nodules have been found in the bay. Todorokite occurs within the nodules.

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