(Redirected from Bay of Green Bay)
'Green Bay' is an arm of
Lake Michigan, located along the south-west 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 long, with a width ranging from about to . 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 ends and the Fox River begins. Locally, the bay is often called the 'Bay of Green Bay' to distinguish the bay from the city. The bay is navigable by large ships.
The bay was named ''Baie des Puants'' (literally, "Bay of the Stinkers") during the
French regime as attested by many French maps of the 17th and 18th centuries. The stench apparently came from
algae in the stagnant water of the bay. According to George R. Stewart, the French received the name from their Indian guides, who called the
Indians living near Green Bay by a derogatory word meaning "Stinkers", thus the bay was the "Bay of the Stinkers" (Stewart 1967:88).
References
★
Stewart, George R. (1967) Names on the Land. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.