community weblog - [ History ]

FINAL MISSION

Across 60 miles of windswept, bitterly cold Lake Michigan waters, the message came through clearly. Even the harsh beating of snow, sleet and freezing rain against

the Coast Guard station at Charlevoix, Mich., couldn’t drown out the plea.

“Mayday, mayday, mayday! This is the Carl Bradley. Our position is 12 miles southwest of Gull Island. We’re in serious trouble!”

Radio operator Charlie Pettit grabbed his headset and mike.

“Carl Bradley, Carl Bradley, this is Coast Guard Station Charlevoix.” Pettit knew this was a brutal night to be pushing through the waters of Lake Michigan.

“Carl Bradley?”   more...

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Historic shipwrecks to be remembered

Monday marks the 33rd anniversary of the often-chronicled sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior. But this month also marks a landmark 50th anniversary of another famous Great Lakes shipwreck -- the Carl D. Bradley in Lake Michigan.

The Detroit Historical Society is holding its annual remembrance for Great Lakes mariners lost at sea on the Fitzgerald anniversary, but this year, the activities will focus on the Bradley and include newly displayed artifacts from the lost ship.  more...

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New shipwreck documentary released on anniversary Edmund Fitzgerald's sinking

Thirty-three years ago today after a fierce winter storm sent the freighter Edmund Fitzgerald to the bottom of Lake Superior, a new video has been released that explores the latest theories behind the ship's sinking.

Mark Gumbinger of Kenosha, Wis., who has produced 31 documentaries on shipwrecks and lighthouses, recently released "The Edmund Fitzgerald Controversy."

"The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald is arguably the most famous shipwreck story told around the Great Lakes," Gumbinger said. "Yet the question remains, 'What really happened to the Mighty Fitz that cold November night?' "  more...

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Old book sheds new light on Great Lakes shipping history

An archivist who was digging through old documents in the basement of a Harrow chuch says she has unearthed a 19th century ledger that provides a rare glimpse into Great Lakes shipping history.

"It was as I went through the book and went closer to the back ... I realized this was something unbelievable and exceptional," Debra Majer said Wednesday.  more...

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Archeologist thrilled at discovery of remnants of first Welland Canal

On Thursday at 9 a. m., Jon Jouppien's team of diggers set out to uncover the Lake Ontario entrance to the first Welland Canal.

They quickly hit the bull's-eye -- twice -- exposing timber beams and supports of the east and the west walls of the channel.

Jouppien, a heritage consultant and archeologist, was elated.

By late morning, the excavators sported giant smiles, and words like "monumental" and "historic" were being used to describe the discovery.  more...

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Boating Traditions and Superstitions

Mariners are the superstitious sort, and it's no wonder why. The sea is ancient and enormous, mysterious and powerful – both a giver to life and taker of souls. For centuries, sailors have courted her favor and warded off bad luck with an odd assortment of traditions. Some have roots in practicalities, and others are a sunken riddle whose meaning will likely never resurface.

Below we've compiled a few of the most famous, culled from books and websites, and attempted to offer an explanation – and sometimes even an antidote – lest you tempt the Fates. How much you observe and believe is, of course, up to you.   more...

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The night the Montrose sank in the Detroit River

On a warm summer night in 1962, a gleaming white British freighter slipped its moorings at a Detroit dock and made for the upbound Detroit River channel for the long trip to Lake Superior. On the bridge was the captain of the 444-foot ship, Captain Ralph Eyre-Walker, a third mate, and George Beatty, a Canadian Great Lakes pilot. Also on the river that night was the tugboat B.H. Becker pushing a 200-foot barge laden with clinker cement from Port Huron bound for the Peerless Cement plant on the Rouge River.   more...

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The building of the Ambassador Bridge

For the past 67 years, the Ambassador Bridge has served as a graceful link between Detroit and its neighbor, Windsor, Ontario, and as a weathered monument to the friendship and cooperation of two great nations. But the bridge itself was born not out of peace and cooperation but amid bitter squabbling between public and private interests over whether it should be built and who would build it.   more...

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The wildest and tenderest piece of beauty...

Harriet Martineau gazed in excitement from the deck of the Milwaukee as the schooner tacked across the Straits of Mackinac en route to the island known to Michigan's native peoples as Michilimackinac. It was the evening of 4 July 1836 and the sophisticated, thirty-four-year-old British author tempered her disappointment at missing the Independence Day festivities at the fort whose whitewashed bulwarks dominated the island's heights with the sights that followed:   more...

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The voyage of the stalwart little ship 'Detroit'

The Titanic disaster in the north Atlantic in Feburary of 1912 stunned the world. A ship so great seemed to make the ocean seem small, no big deal to cross, especially by such a magnificent vessel.

But after the tragedy, fear captured ocean travelers, causing reservations on ocean liners to plunge.

    Enter Detroiter William E. Scripps, son of Detroit News founder James E. Scripps, who decided to try to return confidence to travelers. Not coincidentally, his Scripps Motor Company produced engines. The marine gasoline engine was fairly new in 1912, and its possibilities had not been fully explored. Scripps figured if a gasoline-powered boat could cross the Atlantic --specifically, from Detroit to St. Petersburg, Russia -- it could only help business.    more...

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Ship built in Bay City to become an underwater preserve near Chicago this fall

Another piece of Bay City's shipbuilding history will be sent to the bottom of Lake Michigan this fall but it won't be an accident.

The 83-year-old USS Dexter, now known as the Buccaneer, built by Defoe Boat and Motor Works of Bay City in 1925 will be scuttled in late October for divers to examine and explore off the Chicago shoreline, says Joan Forsberg, president of the Underwater Archeological Society of Chicago.  more...

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Tall ships arrive in Duluth to the delight of thousands

With cannons' roar, a trio of tall ships, their white sails billowing in the wind, glided into Duluth Harbor Thursday afternoon to the delight of the thousands of people who gathered to watch.   more...

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Explorer Won't Budge on Shipwreck Mystery

The gray waters of Upper Lake Michigan are deep, cold and treacherous. And lately, they've been contentious.

A three-way court battle is brewing among an explorer who says he's found a 329-year-old shipwreck, the state of Michigan and the U.S. government. Just as precarious as the weather that supposedly sank the Griffon in 1679, the legal battle seems to portend a perfect storm. more...

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Trio of tall ships will recall bygone era

The Twin Ports will be treated this week to a spectacle not seen in decades — three stately tall ships sailing into harbor.

“You would probably have to go back to the late 1800s or early 1900s before you had a number of tall sailing ships in the harbor at the same time,” said Gene Shaw, director of public relations for Visit Duluth, which is helping sponsor the Duluth Maritime Festival. The three-day festival will feature entertainers, crafts, food and a focus on Duluth’s maritime history. Its centerpiece will be the ships Madeline, Niagara and Pride of Baltimore II.   more...

 

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Shipwrecks tell of Lake Erie's history

MIKE FITZPATRICK

About 60 feet below the surface of Lake Erie, two large paddlewheels rise upward from the wreckage of the Anthony B. Wayne, a sidewheel steamer that sank 158 years ago, about six miles off the coast of Vermilion.

A team from the Peachman Lake Erie Shipwreck Research Center is exploring the remains of the steamer to learn more about the ship and the history of the Great Lakes. more...

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