Jesse: I mean, sure it is made up of two peninsulas and a bunch of islands,
And it has more coastline than Hawaii,
And the Great Lakes feed into the ocean through the St Lawrence Seaway,
And millions of tonnes of cargo pass through the Great Lakes each year on oceangoing vessels.
But it technically does not have a border touching the ocean. That means it’s landlocked.
It's not just the Great Lakes. We had to build canals to make those navigable. The excessive network of navigable rivers, and barrier islands that connect Corpus Christi, TX with Baltimore, MD, should make everything east of The Mississippi River blue, and most of the western half of the Continental states are within a couple hundred miles of a naturally navigable river. We may have more naturally navigable rivers than the rest of the world combined.
Lake Superior has the same surface area as the entire country of Austria. It even has its own climate systems. Hell yes it should count, let alone the entire lake set. They're more like inland freshwater seas.
And don't they drain through navigable rivers all the way to the ocean? To me, landlocked means you can't get on a boat and sail off to become a pirate. 🦜🏴☠️
Landlocked, as an economic term, often implies a lack of major shipping ports. (The negative connotation of the term is arguably mainly from the higher prices for everything that has to be shipped in.)
For anyone expecting the economic definition (the more useful one) of "land locked", this map doesn't help, because the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River allow massive thriving sea ports for ocean going vessels - in states adjacent to them.
Edit: A map updated for major shipping ports would also be funnier, since Nebraska is extra fucked, in comparison. Although, there's no border taxes between the states, so the economic disadvantage of being land locked is also drastically reduced, for Nebraska, compared to the usual meaning.
Idaho has the furthest inland port on the west coast at Lewiston, which would make Idaho not landlocked by that definition. The Great Lakes states should also not be considered landlocked then.
This may come as a surprise to some but as of right now, people from Nebraska can travel to the coast without any restrictions. Don't know what it'll be like next year, though.
Plus what that means for diet-- nowadays transportation is a bit faster but I met a guy from the midwest talking about how 30-40 years ago they didn't really see much fish if it wasn't frozen and fried.
In the US, the vast majority of all commercially available seafood has been frozen. You are just paying a defrosting fee for the more expensive "fresh fish" in the display case at the market.
Where I grew up 30-40 years ago, Red Lobster was good seafood. About as good as you could get at a local restaurant. Of course now, I was surprised to learn that Red Lobster still exists
I spent a lot of time near creeks and lakes as a kid and lived an hour from the Gulf of Mexico. As I got older, I got to experience the great lakes, which is the only thing I've experienced that's land-locked and resembles oceans and beaches.
Yeah, but having done both, it's equally weird that people can just...go to the beach? Without making it a whole week trip! But then they can't just go to a farm for fresh cheese and eggs on a Thursday afternoon?
That's not true. Where I live now, the beach is an hour or two away, and an hour or two from farmland. There's all kinds of areas in the southern US like that. And to-be-fair, I'm counting the Gulf of Mexico as ocean lol
There are occasionally American shows that address this, both serious and comically, and it's always crazy how people are stunned by beaches and the ocean.
That said I live in a country of which half the border is a coastline and half of the land is below sealevel. But still, it seems so normal to have been to a beach at least several times in a lifetime, even if it's distant. For me it's the reverse with mountains and rough terrain though, everything is flat here.