Great   Lakes

As stated by Justice Field in Illinois Cent. R. CO. v. State of Illinois, 146 U.S. 387 (1892):

"It is the settled law of this country that the ownership of and dominion and sovereignty over lands covered by tide waters, within the limits of the several states, belong to the respective states within which they are found, with the consequent right to use or dispose of any portion thereof, when that can be done without substantial impairment of the interest of the public in the waters, and subject always to the paramount right of congress to control their navigation so far as may be necessary for the regulation of commerce with foreign nations and among the states. This doctrine has been often announced by this court, and is not questioned by counsel of any of the parties. Pollard's Lessee v. Hagan, 3 How. 212; Weber v. Commissioners, 18 Wall. 57.

"The same doctrine is in this country held to be applicable to lands covered by fresh water in the Great Lakes, over which is conducted an extended commerce with different states and foreign nations. These lakes possess all the general characteristics of open seas, except in the freshness of their waters, and in the absence of the ebb and flow of the tide. In other respects they are inland seas, and there is no reason or principle for the assertion of dominion and sovereignty over and ownership by the state of lands covered by tide waters that is not equally applicable to its ownership of and dominion and sovereignty over lands covered by the fresh waters of these lakes.

"At one time the existence of tide waters was deemed essential in determining the admiralty jurisdiction of courts in England. That doctrine is now repudiated in this country as wholly inapplicable to our condition. In England the ebb and flow of the tide constitute the legal test of the navigability of waters. There no waters are navigable in fact, at least to any great extent, which are not subject to the tide. There, as said in the case of The Genesee Chief, 12 How. 443, 455, "tide water,' and 'navigable water' are synonymous terms, and 'tide water,' with a few small and unimportant exceptions, meant nothing more than public rivers, as contradistinguished from private ones;' and writers on the subject of admiralty jurisdiction 'took the ebb and flow of the tide as the test, because it was a convenient one, and more easily determined the character of the river. Hence the establishes doctrine in England, that the admiralty jurisdiction is confined to the ebb and flow of the tide. In other words, it is confined to public navigable waters.'

"But in this country the case is different. Some of our rivers are navigable for great distances above the flow of the tide,-indeed, for hundreds of miles, -by the largest vessels used in commerce. As said in the case cited: 'There is certainly nothing in the ebb and flow of the tide that makes the waters peculiarly suitable for admiralty jurisdiction, nor anything in the absence of a tide that renders it unfit. If it is a public, navigable water, on which commerce is carried on between different states or nations, the reason for the jurisdiction is precisely the same, and, if a distinction is made on that account, it is merely arbitrary, without any foundation in reason, and, indeed, would seem to be inconsistent with it.'

"So also, by the common law, the doctrine of the dominion over and ownership by the crown of lands within the realm under tide waters is not founded upon the existence of the tide over the lands, but upon the fact that the waters are navigable; 'tide waters' and 'navigable waters,' as already said, being used as synonymous terms in England. The public being interested in the use of such waters, the possession by private individuals of lands under them could not be permitted except by license of the crown, which could alone exercise such dominion over the waters as would insure freedom in their use so far as consistent with the public interest. The doctrine is founded upon the necessity of preserving to the public the use of navigable waters from private interruption and encroachment,-a reason as applicable to navigable fresh waters as to waters moved by the tide. We hold, therefore, that the same doctrine as to the dominion and sovereignty over and ownership of lands under the navigable waters of the Great Lakes applies which obtains at the common law as to the dominion and sovereignty over and ownership of lands under tide waters in the borders of the sea, and that the lands are held by the same right in the one case as in the other, and subject to the same trusts and limitations...."