The Third Coast: America’s Great Lakes Shoreline

By David Zurick

A full-color photographic journey around the Great Lakes

Locals affectionately call the Great Lakes the "third coast"--though at 4,500 miles, this beloved freshwater shoreline is the nation's longest, covering more distance than the country's Atlantic and Pacific coasts combined.

Divided into four galleries by lake and season, David Zurick's award-winning photographs spotlight the distinct personality of each coastline and the people who call its shores home. We visit windswept Lake Superior in winter, Lake Michigan bursting into spring, Lakes Erie and Ontario under the summer sun, and Lake Huron in the changing palette of autumn, with an additional gallery devoted to the straits and rivers that connect them. An evocative foreword from award-winning nature writer Jerry Dennis sets the stage for this sweeping visual tour.

In Zurick's photographs, lifelong lovers of the Great Lakes will find the familiar shorelines of coastal hometowns, summer refuges, and secret fishing spots--as well as images that reawaken us to the majesty and mystery of North America's "freshwater seas."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0810148676
• ISBN13: 9780810148673
• Release Date: July 2025
• Publisher: Northwestern University Press
• Length: 160 Pages