Circa-1800 land-cover unit 63884: Lake/River

Summary

This record represents polygon 63884 in Michigan’s Land Cover Circa 1800 reconstruction. Its source label is LAKE/RIVER, and its computed footprint is approximately 15,995.6 m² in EPSG:3078. The polygon is a data record in the environmental baseline, not a claim that the entire area had a uniform stand or that the reconstruction observes every plant community.

Evidence and limits

The layer was reconstructed from original GLO surveyors’ section-line notes. That makes it valuable for environmental history and for comparison with the survey grid, while also imposing limits: the source is a generalized historical classification, not a modern field inventory. The geometry should therefore be used with the dataset-wide caveats in Pre-settlement landscape and environmental history.

Open questions

• Which original survey-line observations support this polygon’s classification?
• How did later logging, farming, drainage, fire, or regrowth alter this unit?
• Can the polygon be related responsibly to a named modern wetland, dune, or forest stand without treating a generalized boundary as an exact one?

See also

• Pre-settlement landscape and environmental history
• Land survey and settlement geography
• General Land Office survey plats for the Beaver Island archipelago