The Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point on Lake Superior

Today had to be my last day in Michigan's upper peninsula because I need to be in northern Indiana by tomorrow evening. Tomorrow night starts my week-long reservation at a timeshare near South Bend, Indiana. This morning I had to decide whether to do something else up here today or start driving south through Michigan.

I decided to stay in the upper peninsula of Michigan for a few more hours today. I wanted to see the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point, on the southern shore of Lake Superior. The southern shore of Lake Superior between Grand Marais, Michigan, and Whitefish Point, Michigan, has been called the "Graveyard of the Great Lakes" because so many shipwrecks have occurred here.

Below is a map of the Great Lakes.

Lake Superior, the Soo Locks, and Lake Huron are identified on the map, among other places. West of the Soo Locks, on the southern shore of Lake Superior, the point of land nearest to the Soo Locks that sticks up from the shore is Whitefish Point. On the above map, Whitefish Point is marked with a white circle.

The lake narrows at this point, which makes it more subject to shipwrecks due to traffic congestion. In the 1800s, over 3100 commercial ships were on the Great Lakes, compared to about 200 today. Even though there is a lighthouse on the point, visibility can be poor during fog and storms, and the large lake can generate severe waves in a storm. The museum told the stories of several shipwrecks.

The most famous shipwreck was the Edmund Fitzgerald, which sunk during a storm on November 10, 1975 with 29 crew members aboard. I remember hearing Gordon Lightfoot's song "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" on the radio when it first came out in 1976. I didn't realize at the time how recent the shipwreck had been.

The shipwreck occurred 17 miles from Whitefish Point. The Edmund Fitzgerald was heavily loaded with pellets of taconite, which is iron ore. The museum has a timeline of all the communications with the ship leading up to the wreck. A small scale model of the Edmund Fitzgerald is in a display case.

At the request of some of the crew members' families, the ship's bell was recovered from the Edmund Fitzgerald wreckage, and replaced with a duplicate bell having the names of the 29 crew members engraved on it. The original bell, pictured below, is on display in the museum, and a memorial is set up on the shore.

The museum also has information about ship rescues. Lifeguards and men manning the lighthouses had to practice rescues on a regular basis. They had two methods for performing rescues, and had to try both if the first was unsuccessful. One method was to go out to the ship in a lifeboat such as the one shown below and rescue the stranded crew and passengers.

The other method was to use a small cannon to shoot a weighted line to the ship. The rescuers would wheel a cart holding the line up and down the beach until it was close enough to the ship, and then shoot the line. The ship's crew would tie the line to a high point on the ship, and the passengers and crew would be brought to shore on a pulley attached to the line, as shown below.

The museum ticket included a tour the lightkeeper's house, but it was uneventful. It included an office, kitchen, living quarters, and bedrooms for the keeper and his family.

From the beach, I saw a couple of freighters on Lake Superior, like the one behind me on the horizon in the below photo.

As I drove across the upper peninsula between Whitefish Point and Sault Ste. Marie, I could see that the leaves are starting to change on the trees.

While driving south from Sault Ste. Marie towards the Mackinac Bridge, my windshield was hit with a barrage of bugs. My windshield wipers and fluid weren't strong enough to clean off the bug guts, so I stopped at a rest area to clean the windshield with window cleaner and a microfiber cloth.

When I finally approached the Mackinac bridge, I decided I wasn't quite ready to leave the Michigan's upper peninsula yet, so I exited the highway at St Ignace and found a place to eat dinner. I had thought about driving over the bridge and having the delicious whitefish in Mackinaw City again, but ended up enjoying the quiet, peaceful ambiance by the water -- on the deck outside a highly rated pizza restaurant named BC Pizza in St Ignace.

It was dark by the time I finally crossed the bridge. I drove as far south as Petoskey, on a bay of Lake Michigan, and spent the night in the Lowes parking lot.