2016 Achievement Award Winner: Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society

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Since 1994, Lake Superior Magazine has annually honored an organization or individual who has significantly contributed to the well-being of Lake Superior and its communities and who can serve as a role model for others to follow. For its commitment to discovering, preserving and protecting our maritime heritage, Lake Superior Magazine honors the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society with this year’s Achievement Award.

For many people, Whitefish Point, that remote tip along Michigan’s eastern Upper Peninsula, embodies the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society. There, 11 miles from the nearest town, the society operates the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum campus spread beneath a distinctive red-capped, white steel-framed lighthouse tower.

But the society’s mission and reach go well beyond operation of one historic site.

Late this summer off the Keweenaw Peninsula, the society’s 47-foot research vessel, David Boyd, motored back and forth, trolling a grid with sidescan sonar. On board were some of the Big Lake’s best-recognized wreck hunters and maritime historians gathering information about the Henry B. Smith (disappeared in 1913 and found a century later) and searching the Lake for remains of two French Naval minesweepers missing since the end of World War I.

Meanwhile, 73 highway miles away in downtown Sault Ste. Marie, the society maintains its year-round headquarters in the 1899, 2 1⁄2-story red brick U.S. Weather Bureau Building, where it houses its Great Lakes Images and Papers Collection and offers an exhibit tracking the Weather Bureau from its origins to today’s National Weather Service.

One additional mission for the shipwreck society has become a somber yet heartfelt trust. Because Whitefish Point houses and displays the recovered bell and other artifacts from the Edmund Fitzgerald, the museum has become a place to mourn for surviving family members, colleagues and others moved by the November 10, 1975, loss of the ship and its 29-member crew. The Fitz itself, of course, is beyond such visitation.

All of these functions – to preserve, interpret and uncover maritime history, to respect and honor those lost beyond living memory and those still dear in living hearts – are goals of this private nonprofit organization of 1,378 active members. It is not run by the state of Michigan, but with grants, donations and its own earnings.

“A lot of people, when they visit here, think we’re a (state of) Michigan historic site; we’re not, we’re a private nonprofit,” says Bruce Lynn, executive director of the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society.

That is a challenge when your main income-making operation is miles off the beaten path, albeit a well-paved path. The nearest town to recruit volunteers and staff, tiny Paradise, is 11 miles away. Most come farther.

Bruce often personally greets visitors to the museum, especially those who pay an extra fee for the guided tour of the 75-foot light tower. “Obviously, we’re not on the way to anything, we’re the end of the road, literally. I always want to thank people for doing this. They’re helping to preserve that history. … We live on a shoestring, pretty much.”

At its Whitefish Point site, the society has responsibility for 11 historic structures, among them the 1861 lightkeepers quarters, the 1923 crew quarters that now serve overnight guests and the 1920s-era U.S. Navy radio station living quarters that’s now a video theater.

Maintaining old buildings and a research boat is no inexpensive task. Yet somehow the society has managed to survive, coming out of recent financial tribulations and keeping staff tight (just 30 at the peak of the summer season), seeking grants and donations for projects and operating gift shops at Whitefish Point and in the Sault.

“Like a lot of other organizations around the economic turndown, there were some real challenges,” says Bruce. Things are looking up with an almost 20 percent increase in visitation from 2014. Bruce credits consumer confidence, aggressive U.P. marketing and lower gas prices with bringing more visitors who contribute to what the society can do.

Unlike many maritime historical societies, the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society was founded in 1978 not to manage artifacts, but to find them.

Divers and educators came together under the leadership of former science teacher and avid diver Tom Farnquist to explore for shipwrecks.

The focus expanded after the navigational light at Whitefish Point Light Station was automated and a U.S. Coast Guard commander there suggested tearing down the old neglected buildings.

The original light tower, the oldest operating light on the Lake, was first lit in 1849 with a mission to save lives. The point witnessed many of the 200 downed vessels on this stretch that gave the Shipwreck Coast its nickname.

When the Coast Guard decommissioned the station, the shipwreck society offered to take over. Ultimately the property was divided. The point is critical to bird migration and habitat, so the state Audubon Society maintains a bird observatory there and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has a unit of the Seney National Wildlife Refuge nearby.

In summer 1985, the shipwreck society opened the station as a modest museum in the building where videos are shown today. During that first six-week season, 12,000 or so people visited. Today annual visitation is about 70,000.

The society’s $1.2 million annual budget operates the Whitefish Point and Sault sites and the David Boyd. In addition, it has finished nearly 90 percent of the critical restoration work on the Whitefish Point buildings.

“We’ve got a number of different revenue streams that we work really hard to make our funding,” Bruce says. Grants help and the society has a good grant writer, but the match many require can be tricky. Volunteers for “sweat equity” aren’t easy to come by, he explains. “Volunteers are fantastic, but we’re kind of on the edge of nowhere up here.”

Bev Purcell works at the museum during its May to October season. “I’ve been an employee since 2000 and a volunteer from Day One, probably before we were even a historical society,” says the former township treasurer.

“It’s extremely important,” she says of the museum, “to the whole eastern Upper Peninsula. It’s the best historical museum in the Upper Peninsula … of course, we’re kind of prejudiced. We’re pretty proud of it.”

They aren’t the only ones. “They are an incredible asset to the Great Lakes community,” says Marquette maritime historian and author Fred Stonehouse who has joined society expeditions. “I cannot be more laudatory for what they do.”

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2016 Achievement Award Winner: Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society

Chris Winters / GLSHS

2016 Achievement Award Winner: Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society

The main museum hall at Whitefish Point.

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2016 Achievement Award Winner: Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society

Chris Winters / GLSHS

2016 Achievement Award Winner: Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society

The 1923 surfboat house.

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2016 Achievement Award Winner: Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society

Chris Winters / GLSHS

2016 Achievement Award Winner: Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society

The society’s other center in Sault Ste. Marie, the Weather Bureau building, is owned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The museum is only one aspect of the society’s mission, Bruce points out. “One of the more invisible things that we do, that is one of the more exciting things, is the ongoing search for shipwrecks.”

Since its inception, the society has been involved with discovery or documentation of many wrecks. (See listing below.) The society’s wreck hunting often begins with staff poring over past records and later visiting potential sites on the David Boyd. In the past, divers also have been involved, but the concentration today is on use of sidescan sonar to spot potential wrecks and using a remotely operated vehicle to take a closer look. Finding wrecks can be like discovering treasure, but the real value is in the stories that surround the losses. Bruce says remembering the lightkeepers, life-saving crews, the mariners and the families who supported them is as much a part of the society’s mission as wrecked ships.

A commitment to the people as well as the vessels got the society involved with the family survivors of the Edmund Fitzgerald when they expressed concern for unauthorized dives on the underwater gravesite and interest in an on-land memorial. Ultimately, discussions led to plans involving several vessels and different organizations, including the Canadian government, to retrieve the 200-pound bronze bell from the Fitz pilothouse in 1995.

“I couldn’t get over the stuff they had to do to pull it together and to get it done,” Cheryl Cundy Rozman, whose father was on the Fitz, says of the society’s work to retrieve the bell. “At the end, everything was just beautiful. … The shipwreck society has been real supportive of us and our family members. They listen to us.”

Today, visitors enter the exhibit where the bronze bell is displayed with respect. Illuminated with subdued lighting and in a hall of hushed tones, the bell shares the room with two Fresnel lenses and other exhibits that recall and honor those lost in the sweetwater seas and those who dive to the wrecks to keep their location and memory alive. The bell is removed from its case every year on the anniversary of the Fitz’s sinking for a commemorative ceremony. It is rung 30 times, once for each of the 29 crew members and a final time for all sailors lost at sea. Every year, Bruce says, Fitz family members still arrive to honor their departed loved ones.

“Come right around November 10, we’ll have a lot of members show up.”

The executive director and other staff at the museum have gotten to know the families, like the mother of Bruce Lee Hudson, a Fitzgerald deckhand from North Olmstead, Ohio. She came almost every year until her recent death. “She always reminded me so much of my grandmother,” Bruce says. “It’s a little bit of a generational thing now. Her niece is coming up, representing the families.”

Most shipwrecks represented at the museum are “so far removed from people whose actual father or brother went down in a ship,” Bruce says. But with the Edmund Fitzgerald, “it’s a different level of respect.”

The Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society, it seems, has proven to be worthy of keeping the heritage of not just one lost ship and crew, but of all our collective maritime memories and history for the generations to come.

Preserve & Remember

Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society has been involved in finding or documenting these wrecks, among others.

A.A.Parker, found 2001: On Sept. 19, 1903, the U.S. Life-Saving Service captain at Grand Marais, Michigan, spotted the Parker in distress. A surfboat crew rowed 4 miles to it in 50 minutes. All crew and two dogs were safely in the surfboat and a yawl, when the Parker shuddered and sank bow first.

Comet, one of Whitefish Bay’s most popular dive sites, discovered in the 1970s: Comet was rammed Aug. 26, 1875, by the Canadian sidewheeler Manitoba in Whitefish Bay, quickly sinking with the loss of 11 lives.

Cyprus, discovered August 2007 at 460 feet: On Oct. 11, 1907, Cyprus, just 21 days old and on its second trip, sank in frigid, violent seas downbound from Superior for Buffalo, N.Y. Earlier the George Stephenson noted the Cyprus had a red wake, indicating water was mixing with its iron-ore cargo. The second mate, Charlie Pitz, the only survivor, managed to stay with the raft that overturned many times. Twenty-two men drowned; all but two of their frozen bodies, many in Cyprus life vests, washed ashore over several days.

Edmund Fitzgerald, rests 550 feet down, 15 or so miles from Whitefish Point: A blizzard contributed to the loss of this vessel and all 29 crew on Nov. 10, 1975. The shipwreck society joined the Canadian government, National Geographic Society and others July 4, 1995, to raise the bell and replace it with a bell engraved with the crew names. The original bell is on display at the museum.

John B Cowle, a popular but challenging 215-foot dive, found 1984: On July 12, 1909, the 7-year-old Cowle was rammed mid-ship on a foggy day by Isaac M. Scott and quickly sank, taking 14 sailors to the bottom. It was the Scott’s maiden voyage, halted to take up the survivors. Just 12 years later, the Scott itself sank in Lake Huron during the Great Storm of 1913.

John M. Osborn, 170 feet deep northwest of Whitefish Point, found 1984: On July 27, 1884, the steam barge John M. Osborn was another victim of heavy fog, cleaved by the steel prow of the Alberta. Osborn sank with three members of its crew and one brave Alberta passenger, a seaman headed to Port Arthur, Ontario, who jumped across to rescue an injured Osborn crewman scalded in the engine room.

Nelson, the society’s most recent discovery, found 2014 down 200 feet near Grand Marais, Michigan: The 199-foot three-masted schooner, turned barge, foundered in an 1899 spring storm, when its tow rope to the wooden steamer A. Folsom snapped. Nelson’s Captain Haganey got the crew, his wife and infant child to a lifeboat, jumped into the water, then watched in horror as Nelson plunged with the lifeboat attached by a rope. He was the sole survivor.

Samuel Mather, lying above the entrance to the St. Marys River, found 1978, one of the society’s first discoveries: The 246-foot Mather is the most intact example known of a late 19th-century freight-carrying wooden propeller steamer. Loaded with wheat in Duluth, it collided Nov. 22, 1891, with the steel package freighter Brazil in heavy fog. The Mather sank in 25 minutes, but all crew escaped to the Brazil.

Vienna of Cleveland, 146 feet deep in Whitefish Bay, found 1975: On Sept. 16, 1892, while towing the schooner barge Mattie C. Bell toward Sault Ste. Marie, Vienna was rammed by the Nipigon towing two barges. The uninjured crew boarded the Nipigon. Vienna sank, despite an attempt to tow it. Some artifacts from it are in the shipwreck museum, and the ship is a popular dive, though divers have been lost at the site.

For full disclosure, Lake Superior Magazine supports the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society by joining as a member each year. Find more about the society at www.shipwreckmuseum.com.