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Lake Superior may be declared one of the New 7 Wonders of Nature … given enough votes.

The Big Lake is competing with 260 other national and multinational nominees in the New 7 Wonders of Nature global poll.

The contest is sponsored by the Switzerland-based nonprofit foundation New7Wonders. The competition is stiff: Nominees around the world include Mount Everest, the Matterhorn on the Swiss/Italian border, the Rock of Gibraltar, Scotland’s Loch Ness lake, Japan’s Mount Fuji, Russia’s Lake Baikal, the Grand Canyon in the United States and Dinosaur Provincial Park in Alberta, Canada.

If you go to the brief description of Lake Superior on the New 7 Wonders website, you’ll find a photo showing Split Rock Lighthouse in a very familiar pose to those of us who live on the lake.

Besides Lake Superior, another nominee that borders on both the United States and Canada is Niagara Falls.

Voting is easy if you have Internet access. Go to the website www.new7wonders.com and simply fill in the required information. In the current stage of voting, you’ll get seven picks; and you can vote in each stage of the process.

The first round of voting ended Dec. 31, and now people are picking their favorites to bring the number to 77 semifinalists. More than a billion people are expected to take part in the voting to trim the list.

Votes can be cast until July 7, when a panel will then narrow the list to 21 finalists to be put to another popular vote via the Web, text message or telephone to produce seven winners in 2011.

An earlier competition drew participation from more than 100 million people and selected the seven manmade wonders of the world. In mid-2007, the organizers unveiled the list, which included India’s Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China and Rome’s Colosseum.

The New 7 Wonders campaign is led by Swiss-Canadian adventurer Bernard Weber, who started the foundation in 1999. The aim is to “significantly raise awareness of the incredible variety and beauty of nature around us,” according to the organizers, and to support, preserve and restore natural sites and monuments.

A movement is afoot to find the necessary “support group” to further Lake Superior in the contest. Stay tuned here for updates.

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