Lake Superior is 1333 feet at its deepest. If
you took the water out of the lake, you could fill Grand Canyon and have enough
left over to cover the continental United States with 5 feet of water. Seems impossible.
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| The Boxster and Munising Bay |
We find breakfast at
a book store/library/lunch counter. A great egg sandwich and lots to read.
We are in search of
shipwrecks on this bright and shiny morning. Cruising out on Munising Bay, once
again, this time in a glass-bottomed boat.
Captain Theresa expertly maneuvers
over the remains of three different ships as we gaze into the depths through
the green glass observation panels.
The first is the
corpse of the Murray Bay a 19th century schooner. She went down in
1884 in a storm while the ship was moored. She sank so fast she pulled the trees she was tethered to right out of the ground. The wheelhouse popped like a cork.
She was carrying ore worth several million in today’s dollars. She was towed
into shallower water and the ore was salvaged along with any useful material
from the ship itself.
It’s eerie to see
it, still mostly intact. We are voyeurs from another age peering into someone
else’s tragedy. The lake water is so cold and absent of microorganisms that
ships don’t decay…unless they are brought to the surface. There is a diving
circuit that’s mapped out for underwater explorers who are welcome to examine
these remnants up close. Nothing can be taken from what amounts to a submerged
museum.
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| The Hull of the Murray Bay |
The Herman H. Hettler, a wooden steamer, ran aground in 1926 after losing visibility in a snowstorm
and broke in half on a submerged reef. For three years she sat upright until
she was deemed a hazard and blown apart with dynamite. We see mostly debris, or
“junk” including the 2500-pound anchor and Captain John Johnson’s john.
The last sunken
craft is an unnamed scow schooner which sank in the late 1700’s. This was a
poorly designed vessel that probably tipped over in the wind. She was 200 feet
long and had 3 masts which was huge for the time. Scow schooners were taken off
the lake in the 1850’s because they were so unstable. This one was probably carrying
trade goods to be exchanged for furs.
It’s thought
provoking to gaze through the greenish glass and see what lies beneath the
lake. Who knows what secrets she protects?
An eagle watches us
watching him.
Still slightly full
from breakfast we stop at Muldoon’s to try the pasties. It’s now or never. We
decide to split one, (they’re giant). They are an English tradition and were
favored by miners who tucked them into a lunch box and took them underground. A hearty filling wrapped in pastry.
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| Ode to the Pasty |
A Yooper we've learned is someone who lives on the Upper Peninsula in Michigan. UPer=Yooper.
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| Meat Potatoes Carrots and Rutabegas Plus Gravy |
We stop to stretch
our legs in Houghton. Our walk along the 4 ½ mile waterfront trail is short
though because it’s downright hot and there’s not a whisper of a breeze off the
water.
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| Houghton's Waterfront Trail |
We drive almost to
the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula which juts like a crooked finger out into the
lake. The Keweenaw Mountain Lodge is one mile from the harbor and is set on a
forested hillside. The lodge and adjoining golf course were built in the 1930’s
when all the copper mines had closed and an emergency work program was
instituted by the federal government. In 1935, under the WPA, log cottages were
added. We’ll stay in one tonight.
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| The Lodge |
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| Our Cottage |
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