Cruising on Salty Paws: Our Last Leg and the Wreck of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald

Our boats were dwarfed by the cliffs at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

InReach confirmed our cruise
around Lake Superior.

When a boat completes a circular cruise, such as our circum-navigation of Lake Superior, there is an expression that “the boat has crossed its wake.” Salty Paws and Betty Sue crossed their wakes on September 1 in fog at the beginning of the St. Mary’s River in Sault Sainte Marie. Five weeks earlier we had entered Lake Superior in the fog on July 27.

Between those dates we had almost perfect weather and logged over 1,500 miles around the lake. What an adventure we have had.

Our last leg took us east along the southern coast from Bayfield, Wisconsin to the Soo, as Sault Ste. Marie is called. Our stops in between, first took us through the waterway that cuts the Keweenaw Peninsula in half. We spent a night in Houghton, Michigan, historic center of copper country, and in the shadow of the Houghton-Hancock Lift Bridge, the heaviest and widest lift bridge in the world.

Copper is no longer mined in the Keweenaw, but we saw historical remnants including the beautiful Houghton County Courthouse and the top of an old mine viewed from the water, now a park. The city's waterfront reflects its post-industrial transition as we docked next to the new library where a factory once stood.

Mine visible from the water.

Houghton County Courthouse has
a copper roof and cream-colored
brick trimmed with red sandstone.

We spent a night in Marquette, which still has a functioning taconite-pellet loading facility. We learned that the only US mining of taconite is in Minnesota and Michigan. Adjacent to the marina is a nice park that was hosting a music festival featuring an Eagles tribute band, which we thoroughly enjoyed.

One of the highlights of the southern shore is Pictured Rocks National Seashore. The cliffs extend for 15 miles or so and rise up to 200 feet. The picture that begins this blog tells it all, but here are three more.

Immediately after Pictured Rocks we cruised by the now-protected Grand Sable Dunes. One section of the dune was used as a log chute in Michigan's logging days.

This section of the Lake Superior coast, Pictured Rocks to Whitefish Point has only one harbor of refuge and is known as the Shipwreck Coast. Fittingly, many of the Whitefish Point Lighthouse buildings now house the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum. The famous wreck of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald lies just 17 miles to the northwest. We spent several hours there.

Painting of the wreck by artist Jim Clary based on underwater
footage captured in 1994.

So many of these shipwrecks happened during the late fall storms, when companies were pushing for ships and crews to deliver one more load just before shipping would end for the season due to ice and the seasonal closure of the the Soo locks. If you want a great book, published just last year, read The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald by John U. Bacon. Dick and I listened to the audio version over the course of our first two weeks on Lake Superior.

The SS Edmund Fitzgerald (from Wikipedia)

After the development of taconite pellets in the 1940s (see my previous blog), Great Lakes shipping boomed in the 1950s. Edmund Fitzgerald, CEO of Northwest Mutual, saw a profit-making opportunity in building a state-of-the-art ship and contracting its operation. The 729-foot Fitzgerald was built in 1958. At the time, it was the largest vessel on the Great Lakes, and for years broke and held shipping records on tonnage and speed, moving taconite from Lake Superior to Detroit, Toledo and other steel-mill ports.

Salty Paws and Betty Sue
in the MacArthur Lock. The
viewing stand is on the right.

The

Now down 21 feet and ready
to exit the MacArthur Lock.

maximum length and width of Great Lakes freighters are dictated by the size of the Soo locks. The original locks were two in tandem and opened in 1855. There were then the largest in the world, measuring 350 long, 70 feet wide and 13 feet deep. Multiple expansions in later decades led to the construction of the MacArthur Lock in 1943 (800 feet long, 80 feet wide and 31 feet deep). This lock remains in operation today, and is where we exited Lake Superior.

My picture of an Army Corps picture showing the Soo Locks. The MacArthur
Lock is at the far left, the Poe Lock is the second lock from the left and the next
lock is under massive reconstruction to provide another modern lock similar
to the Poe Lock. It is not yet named and is scheduled to open in 2030.

The massive Poe Lock opened in 1969, measuring 1,200 feet in length, 110 feet width and 32 feet deep. In 1972 the first of the super-carriers began cruising the Great Lakes with capacities that more than double that of the Fitzgerald.

Still, older ships continue to operate, and that was the case in 1975 when on the pleasant afternoon of November 9th the Fitzgerald picked up its last taconite shipment in Superior, Wisconsin on the far western end of Lake Superior. Expectations were for a normal 25-hour trip to the Soo Locks, 350 plus miles to the east.

The bell was the only item
recovered from the Fitzgerald.
A replica bell engraved with the
names of the 29 lost was placed
on the ship.

This is one of the buoys used
on a mooring at the wreck site.
During a violent storm it was
dragged as deep as 250 feet
below the surface. The pressure
bent the steel like paper.

Soon, however, an unexpected severe storm developed. Less than 30 hours later, the Fitzgerald disappeared along with its crew of 29 men. The Fitzgerald lies 530 feet below the surface in Canadian waters.

An estimated 6,000 ships have sunk on the Great Lakes, but safety improvements after the sinking of the Fitzgerald have resulted in no further large commercial vessel lost due to a storm on the Great Lakes.

Almost everyone seems to know about the wreck of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, and I have no doubt that much of that is due to Gordon Lightfoot's haunting song, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. The Bacon book documents this well. On the other hand, very, very few know about the 1958 sinking of the 638-foot SS Carl D. Bradley in which 33 lives were lost.

The Museum Ship Valley Camp

It was very interesting to walk on the
uneven floor of the massive
Valley Camp cargo hold

We learned about the Bradley during our visit to the Valley Camp, a 550-foot freighter that is now a wonderful museum in downtown Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. Ron and I just happened to go in a small room showing a movie entitled The Men Long Forgotten: The Sinking of the Carl D. Bradley.

There were two survivors from the Bradley tragedy, and they told of shipmates who jumped from the sinking ship only to lose their lifejackets once they hit the water. This led to the Coast Guard requirement to have crotch straps on lifejackets.

The Valley Camp museum also exposed me to the greatest maritime disaster on the Great Lakes when 835 lives were lost after the S.S. Eastland capsized in 1915 only 19 feet from the dock. You have the read the Exhibit write-up below

The S.S. Eastland

We left the Soo to spend our last two nights in North Channel before reuniting with our trucks and trailers in Spanish. Ron headed to South Carolina, and Dick and I took off to Maine. I am pleased to report that there were no incidents on the drive home although we almost had one.

In French River, Ontario

We ended up on a stretch of highway that surprisingly had no gas stations for over 100 miles. As our driving range dropped to 25 miles we reluctantly got off the highway to drive 10 miles to a small gas station in French River. With give miles to go, the gauge dropped below E, the alarm sounded and no cruising range number registered. Fortunately, made it!

Our last night was at South Benjamin Island in the North Channel.

Dick and Ron were great cruising buddies and made this trip extra special.

The next four pictures were sent to me by a Great Lakes ship photographer who has a Facebook page called Aircraft and Marine Machines. He was out getting drone footage of some ship on the St. Mary's River when Salty Paws and Betty Sue went right under his drone. He tracked down my address through my membership in the the Great Loop Cruisers Association..