Joe Bollinger of Glen Burnie read that Lake Erie had frozen. "Which of the remaining four Great Lakes would be the next to freeze, and has it ever happened?" Lake Erie is the first to freeze because it's the shallowest. Old timers in Erie, Pa., recall driving across the ice to Canada. Lake Ontario would be next. The Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab says 90 percent of the five lakes' surface has frozen in extreme winters, such as the three beginning in 1976-77.