A WINTER MYSTERY ON THE CANAL

Have you ever visited the canal connecting Lake Cadillac and Lake Mitchell?  Built as a lifeline during the logging era in the late 1800s, the canal has a mystery that many notice every winter.  The lakes will freeze and the canal will be open… or the canal will freeze and the lakes will be open… but never both frozen.  Here is why:

The rapid water flow suggests the reason for the mystery of the canal freezing over while the lakes display open water. Shallow waters freeze more quickly than deep water causing the shoreline and waters to freeze first. When the lakes freeze over, it opens up for the remainder of winter most likely due to the swift current over its three or four foot depth. The mystery was included in Robert Ripley’s, “Believe it or Not” several decades ago and is a phenomenon that is still talked about by locals and visitors alike to this day.