In the early twentieth century, a mysterious ecological crisis nearly wiped out the fish that most people cared about in the largest freshwater ecosystem on earth—the Great Lakes. The impact reverberated across the region, ruining local industries, damaging small town economies and indigenous communities, and destroying the livelihoods of people in the United States and Canada. With little reason for hope, a dedicated group of scientists, policymakers, and conservationists tackled the mystery.

One part obsession, one part addiction and an unending quest for adventure makes Great Lakes surfers a truly rare breed. Add 40-knot winds, 15-foot waves and rigid temperatures to a storm-ravaged inland sea and they'll tell you it's a recipe for fun.

Through several interlocking stories, including the story of maritime commerce and the ships that move cargo through the inland waterway, Mysteries of the Great Lakes will take you on a journey through the greatest lake system in the world, and showcase the amazing geography, ecology, science, and history of the region.

Coke Ennyday, the scientific detective, divides his time into periods of "Sleep", "Eat", "Dope" and "Drinks". In fact, he overcomes every situation with drugs: consuming cocaine to increase his energy or injecting it in his opponents to incapacitate them. To help the police, he tracks down a contraband of opium (which he eagerly tastes) transported within "leaping fishes", saving a "fish-blower" girl from blackmail along the way.

Scrappy and Oopie build a bird house, and a sparrow wants to move in. However a mean robin stops him, and then tries to kill him with an arrow.

The obsessive scientist Dr. Miller is working on a matter-transmitter invention called the Paratron; a conspiratorial team of spies and no-goods pursue him to Alaska, trying to steal the device.

The first of three films made featuring the Nurse Sarah Keate character created by Mignon Eberhardt. This 20th Century-Fox film was followed by two from Warner Bros. in 1938 ("Mystery House" and "The Patient in Room 18"), both starring Ann Sheridan in the role played here by Jane Darwell, who was, despite source that seems to think otherwise, first-billed in this film with her name on the posters twice the size of that of Sig Rumann(as billed in this film), Sally Blane, Thomas Beck and Joan Davis. The story has nurse Ann Smith, with the knowledge of her night supervisor Sarah Keate, smuggling her brother Allen Tracy into the hospital as a patient of Doctor Taggert, in order to hide him from gunmen sworn to get him. Gangster Mortimer Beatty is admitted to the room next to Tracy's. Ann's patient is found dead, but the dead man is not Tracy but a charity patient who had died days before, but now has some fresh bullet wounds in his body.

A lady owner loves a millionaire's son whose horse is doped by her trainer.

A magician helps outwit a Chinaman's gang.

A lesson in geography, which concludes that although the Great Lakes have had their ups and downs, nothing has been harder to take than what humans have done to them lately. In the film, a lone canoeist lives through the changes of geological history, through Ice Age and flood, only to find himself in the end trapped in a sea of scum.