I lived on an Island in Lake Huron for about 5 years and went visiting the Lake Superior area many times. To call it a lake does not really do it justice: it's an inland sea, and a most impressive one. I've seen the lake from the shore in more than one storm and it didn't look any different than the ocean, except that it seemed in many ways more violent. I asked the locals about it and they said that the lake is more violent than the sea in places but there wasn't any coherent explanation, it could be the steep rise of what eventually becomes the shoreline rather than the much more gradual one the ocean usually has.
There are also much lower periodicity waves in such constrained bodies called 'seiches':
There are also much lower periodicity waves in such constrained bodies called 'seiches':
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seiche
There is a museum dedicated to the wrecks, well worth visiting, but do bring earplugs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Lakes_Shipwreck_Museum