Great Lakes Shipping

The fishing boats are built for weather

Himself is in his glory.  The combination of marine, mechanical and industrial causes his pulse to quicken.  Entering Duluth, Minn.,  heading to Superior WI,  is the first chance to see the mighty Superior Lake.  We know days could be spent here but the schedule forces us to move on to the UP (Upper Peninsula).  Those Wisconsin folk think the UP should be theirs, as would anyone looking at the map.  The story we heard was that the Michigan people were whining about losing some land to Ohio, so the Feds gave them the UP.    UP jokes resemble the now politically incorrect Polish jokes of years ago.  Nevertheless, the UP is a treasure and Michigan made out.  The Maritime history is extensive.

A model of the structure used to empty rail cars and load ships

The first stop is Marquette, where the Maritime Museum and Lighthouse introduced us to the lake's shipping history.  A cute town, with a heavy industrial past.  A massive structure extends into the water and was used by the rail cars carrying iron ore.  They dumped their load, which was then slid down into the holds of Great Lakes bulk freighters.







The next stop was the Tahquamenon Falls State Park, which provided a nice change from the industrial  scene.  A hike to the falls was a highlight, with much needed exercise after so much time on the road.  Despite the amount of water everywhere, we have had almost no mosquito problem.







The next treat was the well done Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point-the area where upbound traffic coming from the Soo (Sault Ste. Marie) Locks leave the lee of the point to face 200 miles of unobstructed weather.  The point has the largest concentration of shipwrecks, with the overall total in the Lakes being 6000 since Europeans came to the area.

There is a very moving video of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.  The Fitz was downbound in 1975 when she radioed the freighter Anderson that she lost radar and was taking on a list.  The Anderson was 10 miles behind and asked if the Fitz had her pumps going, to which the Fitz answered in the affirmative.  The Anderson then provided radar positioning aid to the Fitz.  The winds were 90+ mph and the waves at 30'.  A snow squall hit the Anderson, interrupting radar.  When radar again operated, the Fitz was gone.  The Anderson alerted the Coast Guard, whose subsequent search revealed debris.  The ship was later located in 500'+ of water, a mere 15 miles from Whitefish Point, where she would have entered more protected waters.  All 29 hands were lost.  I downloaded the Gorden Lightfoot song and it now has a new meaning to me.

The Newtsuit used to dive the wreck and retrieve the bell

Twenty-five years after the disaster, the Canadian Coastguard, the National Geographic and the Shipwreck Museum arranged to remove the Fitz's bell from the wreck and replace it with one on which all 29 names were inscribed.  The original bell was carefully restored and now serves as a memorial at the museum.  The ceremony dedicating it was very moving as family members rang the bell for each lost sailor.

The freighters are provisioned while underway

The next treat for himself was in "Soo."  It is one of the busiest locks in the world with about 100 million tons of cargo passing through each year.  The U.S. operated the two commercial locks and the Canadians operate the small pleasure boat channel.  We scored a campground with a clear view of the channel just south of the locks.  While there are a few ocean going vessels, most are Great Lakes bulk carriers.  The Soo locks boat trip was a treat.  We cruised the commercial lock, saw the Canadian Soo including a steel mill and returned through the pleasure boat canal.  Even though it is summer, we experienced high winds and and a thunderstorm, but the sun returned in the afternoon.

 I took the afternoon off and himself visited yet another museum in the Valley Camp, built in 1917, 735' long and in operation until the 70's.  After his visit to the museum I was informed that it was unique in having one of the last "triple expansion steam engines."

That's pretty much it for our Great Lakes experience.  I did just learn that my brother John spent his first summer in the Naval Academy on a destroyer which made the Navy's maiden voyage into the Great Lakes.  It was 1959 and Ike and the Queen dedicated the St. Lawrence Seaway's opening.  He told me that at each stop the crew would get shore leave.  The local WWII vets would buy the sailors more drinks than they could handle to honor the occasion.  John still remembers his first boilermaker.