When I was a 4-foot-tall 7-year-old standing on the shore of Lake Michigan, I could see only 2.6 miles to the horizon. To a kid, it felt like the distance to the moon. So, standing on a beach in South Haven, Mich., while on a family vacation, why couldn't I see Chicago's skyscrapers?
I'm 25 years older and 2 feet taller, and I still can't see Chicago when I'm vacationing across the lake. But at night, the city's glow on the horizon is intense and unmistakable (weather permitting). Close enough to see the lights but not even one skyscraper: I've always wondered why that is.
The lake is so much larger than it seems. It's the fifth-largest in the world, and contains about 1.3 quadrillion gallons of freshwater. I didn't realize until I did the math for this story just how big that bigness really is.
At 6 feet tall, when I stand on the beach in South Haven and look across the lake toward Chicago, I can see only 4 percent of the way to Navy Pier - the full distance is 78 miles, and thanks to the curvature of the Earth, I can see just over 3 miles.
But with every foot in height a person grows, he or she can see a bit farther. If I were a foot taller, I could see about a quarter-mile farther. I'd be taller still if I stood at the edge of Navy Pier, which sits a few feet above the waterline. Assuming it is about 5 feet from the top of the water to Navy Pier's floor, I could see 4.3 miles across the lake instead of 3.2.
A note on methodology
Click to expand, if you want to get nerdy with me for a minute.
Since South Haven is somewhat north of Chicago, I selected another point directly east across the lake as well: The beach in Sawyer, Mich., is 68.5 miles due east of Navy Pier, and only about 10 miles closer than South Haven.
In the map below, the circles represent what's visible to a 6-foot-tall person standing at the center of each.
Not even close. You'd have to go up about two-thirds of a mile (3,488 feet) in the air to see Chicago from South Haven. Though you'd really be seeing whatever's at the water level of Chicago at that point; you'd only have to elevate a few blocks before you could see the very top of the Sears Tower antennas (yeah, Willis, I said it).
Which isn't to say that there's nothing within visual range of the Chicago lakefront. The most noticeable features are probably the six water cribs two miles out, brick houses on small artificial islands. The cribs pump water from the lake toward shore, two of them terminating next to Navy Pier, at the James W. Jardine Water Purification Plant (the world's largest, incidentally).
Farther south of Navy Pier, if the weather cooperates and you get a bit off the ground, the steel mills in Gary become discernible. Once the world's largest steel mill, U.S. Steel's Gary Works is about 22.9 miles from the tip of Navy Pier - to see it, you'd have to be 300 feet off the ground, the equivalent of almost 20 stories of a typical office building, according to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. But you're not looking at the ground, you're looking at an enormous steel mill, parts of which, and plumes from which, reach easily higher than 300 feet tall - in other words, visible from water level at Navy Pier.
If I wasn't able to see Chicago from the South Haven beach - if a plane on approach to O'Hare 2,600 feet off the ground isn't high enough to see that far - then why is it so common to see the lights of Chicago from 80 miles across the lake?
In part, it has to do with how light refracts across the sky - the same reason sunsets look so cool. But the main reason is because Chicago is No. 1 in an unfortunate category. According to National Geographic, since 2008 Chicago has had the most light pollution of any city in North America. Light pollution, the excess light emitted from street lights and office buildings, spreads in every direction, making it harder to see stars in the night sky. It also means Chicago has a visible emissary spreading across the horizon in every direction.
I never realized how large the lake was because I never thought much about it. As I've grown up in Chicago, the lake has always been huge and present, and that's about it. I've been on a tour boat or two and gone out less than a mile, I'm sure. I've swum in it, perhaps more than is healthy, and I've often been grateful for its existence when I drink a nice, tall glass of water from the tap - or, more honestly, when I do the same someplace else and notice how comparatively bad that other water often tastes.
Lake Michigan is a colossus of nature that deserves our respect and gratitude. Every city on earth would be glad to sit alongside one of the planet's largest freshwater lakes, and in the coming water-deprived century that will be even more true. The vast blue expanse that sets our eastern border is one of the wonders of the world, and our proudest skyscrapers nothing more than bumps at the water's edge.