Kathleen Lavey

Lansing State Journal

Imagine the scene: A beautiful spring day in Traverse City, with the crystal blue waters of Lake Michigan in the distance.

Wait, what was that? Did a whale just breach the waters?

No. Of course it didn’t. Whales don’t live in the Great Lakes.

Or do they?

No, not at all.

But that doesn’t stop visitors – spurred on by ongoing pranks such as the Lake Michigan Whale Migration Station Facebook page – from asking for whale-watching tours.

“We get a few a year,” said Mike Norton, who does media relations for Traverse City Tourism. “Our volunteers, they’re the ones up front who are answering the questions. They just point out that whales require salt water, and we don’t have any of that here.”

It’s easy to see why some folks might get taken in by the apparently sincere comments on the Facebook page, like this one posted by a Facebook user named Katie Lynn in response to news of a “sighting”:

“We were out fishing for walleye and were surrounded by a large pod," she wrote. "I just love the migration here in Michigan. I wish I had a camera that day.”

It’s impossible to tell if the 7,180 people who “like” the page are following along in good fun or hoping to book a whale-watching tour on their next Michigan visit.

Maybe that doesn’t matter, says Justin “Bugsy” Sailor, a Marquette entrepreneur whose Yooper Steez includes a blog and an online store selling Upper Peninsula-themed merchandise.

He’s known for April Fool’s Day jokes, including a fake petition last year to change the name of Lake Michigan to “Lake Wisconsin.” In 2013, he reported a shark sighting in Lake Superior.

“It got a really fun reaction,” he said. “It was hard for me to gauge the number of people who took it seriously against the people who took it as a joke right away.”

His conclusion: “A lot of people wanted to believe it.”

For the record, again: There are no whales in the Great Lakes, right?

“That is correct,” said Dave Caroffino, fisheries biologist with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. “They’re a marine species.”

Same with sharks.

But spring is a key time for spotting the Great Lakes’ largest living thing, the armor-plated, pointy-nosed, prehistoric-looking sturgeon. The elusive fish can weigh up to 200 pounds and live more than 100 years, and during April and May they head in from the lakes to river spawning grounds.

“The most common place you will see them is somewhere below a dam, in a shallow, rapid area,” Caroffino said.

Despite knowing better, Sailor would like to keep a door open for the unlikely and the unbelievable.

“When it comes to things like Sasquatch and the Loch Ness Monster, I simply have to believe in them,” he said. “What’s the fun if they don’t exist?”