National Marine Sanctuary, Alpena MI [Lake Huron] (July 12-14, 2014)

The Place

The Great Lakes are a super highway for shipping goods.  Iron ore, limestone, cherries, you name it, if it is shipped by the ton and is produced or used along the Great Lakes, chances are it spent some time in the hold of a ship.  Through the years the ships changed from wooden sailing ships to the 760 foot steel tankers they use today.   The Lakes can be treacherous for ships.  Ferocious storms, fog, ice, fire, collisions and human error can cause the demise of a ship transporting goods through these waters.  They estimate that 10,000 shipwrecks exist in the Great Lakes, many of which have never been found. 

The cold, clear, fresh waters of the Great Lakes preserve these wrecks just as they were when they settled on the bottom.  Unlike ocean shipwrecks where salt and animal life break down the wooden vessels, these are intact.  NOAA runs the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary here, protecting and honoring the estimated 200 wrecks believed to be in the Thunder Bay area, 80 of which have been found.  The wreck sites are marked with buoys where divers, snorkelers and small boaters can tie up and view the wreck.

The Adventure

We went with Steve and Robin Mathews on the Alpena Shipwreck  glass bottom boat tour.  It was fascinating.  The boat is berthed on the river next to the Great Lakes Heritage Center.  It travels down the river, and under a drawbridge out into Lake Huron.  Over the course of 2 hours, we passed over three wrecks, in 15-30 feet of water.  The water is so clear that you can see the details of the ship and cargo (mostly pieces of limestone) on the bottom.  You could see individual boards, ribs, hemp rope, and anchors.  On the more modern wrecks (early 1900’s) you can see boilers and, in the case of a dredge barge, the dredging apparatus.  The tour ended with seeing a modern day ship being loaded at a cement factory dock.  If you are ever this way, we would recommend the tour.  They do cancel the tours because of windy conditions or bad weather, so it pays to call ahead.

The Great Lakes Maritime Heritage Center is a very well designed museum with lots of information about the history of shipping on the Great Lakes.  It tells the stories of the ships and the sad tales of how they sank.  They chose ships that represented the different types of ships used during the Century of  Shipwrecks (1825-1925).  Also in the museum is an “underwater” wreck that you can walk through, touch the wooden beams and see the debris field around the wreck.  [The explanatory label in this exhibit even has the invasive zebra mussels "growing" around parts of the sign.]  Fun for the kids is a life-sized replica of a sailing ship tilted over in a storm where you can move both below and above decks, complete with thunder and lightning.  The museum is free.   Take your credit card though, the gift shop is very nice.