LAKE MICHIGAN—MONDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2005 Second Mate Patrick Pettit was in the map room as the American Spirit sailed out of sight of the Upper Peninsula and eased its way into Lake Michigan. Pettit was chatting up a visitor while hunched over a map on the drafting table, charting the boat’s course with a pencil, … Read more
Port of Duluth—Saturday, October 15, 2005 In the middle of the night, at the end of a long day in the middle of October, I found myself sitting in a recliner. I was in the lounge of the penthouse high above the long deck of the American Spirit, a thousand-foot bulk freighter. We were plunging … Read more
In late November 1905, one of the worst storms still on record overtook Lake Superior in what became known as the “Mataafa Blow.” Just north of Split Rock, the steamer William Edenborn struggled along the North Shore on its way to Duluth, towing behind it the Madeira, a massive 436-foot schooner-barge. As the winds swelled … Read more
When the Edmund Fitzgerald was launched in 1958, it was the largest ship to sail the Great Lakes. At 729 feet and able to haul more than 25,000 tons of iron ore, the freighter was dubbed “The Pride of the American Flag.” Year after year, the Fitzgerald hauled iron ore and taconite out of the … Read more
November is readily acknowledged as the stormiest month on the Great Lakes. Each year around the beginning of this steely month, over the largest bodies of fresh water in the world, two storm tracks converge. From the north bear down the Alberta Clippers, full of freezing polar air. From the lee slopes of the Rockies … Read more
The gales of November still rage with controversy and treachery, as shipwrecks and their grisly cargo become the hot new tourist attraction. A beacon of light shines out from the tip of an eighty-mile stretch of shoreline known as Lake Superior’s Shipwreck Coast. It shines from the lighthouse at Whitefish Point, Michigan, over an area … Read more