A Trip to Point MOO – the Michigan, Ohio, Ontario Tripoint
Somewhere in the middle of Lake Erie is a significant geographic point - the exact spot where Michigan, Ohio and Ontario meet. It's a crossing of international waters between the United States and Canada. And we call it Point MOO.
Point MOO is at 41.95932152707178, -83.11259778472498.
👇🏼BELOW: These Short, Overlooked MIchigan Highways Exist Only to Leave the State👇🏼
There's a history of naming these obscure dots on the map in the middle of large bodies of water. Perhaps the best known is Point Nemo, a spot in the southern Pacific Ocean somewhere between Chile and New Zealand that is the spot on the globe furthest from any other land - the Pitcairn Islands some 2690 kilometers north, the Easter Islands a similar distance northeast and the coast of Antarctica to the south.
For Point MOO (named obviously for Michigan - Ohio - Ontario) that location is fairly close to the Michigan coast line as seen on this map.
The point is roughly 6.58 miles off of Estral Beach, Michigan. It's 15 miles north of West Sister Island, an uninhabited National Wildlife Refuge belonging to Ohio and 22 miles north of the Ohio mainland at Reno Beach. For Ontario, Point MOO is 5.7 miles south of Lakewood Beach.
Vessels plying Lake Erie, both freighters and pleasure craft, have passed Point MOO for centuries like never noting they were at a location where two countries, two states and one province meet.
Michigan's Great Lakes Tripoints
In addition to Point MOO, a name we've coined for this article for the Michigan - Ohio - Ontario Tripoint, there are two other Great Lakes Tripoints that form portions of Michigan's borders. We'll take the liberty of devising names for these tripoints as well. There's Point MII, the Michigan - Indiana - Illinois tripoint in southern Lake Michigan and Point MOM, the Michigan - Ontario - Minnesota in Lake Superior between Grand Portage, Minnesota and Isle Royale.
Finally, there's the tripoint for which we can't create a cute name, the Michigan-Wisconsin-Minnesota tripoint.
[Editor's Note: the image accompanying this article is a stock image of a buoy. There appears to be no such marker at Point MOO with the nearest buoy at Toledo Light #2 to the south according to the National Data Buoy Center.]
These Short, Overlooked MIchigan Highways Exist Only to Leave the State
Gallery Credit: Google Maps Street View
The Only Destination For These Highways are Michigan State Parks
Gallery Credit: Google Maps Street View