The Whitefish Point Lighthouse is the most famous lighthouse and the oldest active lighthouse on Lake Superior. It began operating in 1849, though the present tower was constructed later. Early a stopping place for Indians, voyageurs, and Jesuit missionaries, the point marks a course change for ore boats and other ships navigating this treacherous coastline to and from St. Mary's Canal. Since 1971 the light, fog signal, and radio beacon have been automated and controlled from Sault Ste. Marie.
On the property is the Shipwreck Museum. It tells the stories of several shipwrecks including the Edmund Fitzgerald in 1975. Whitefish Point has been called the graveyard of Lake Superior. Since navigation began on Lake Superior there has been approximately 550 wrecks. More vessels were lost in the Whitefish Point area than any other part of Lake Superior. There are three major reasons for the high loss of ships in the Whitefish Point area. First, the eastern end of the lake is very congested where the lake narrows down like a funnel and up and down bound ship traffic must pass. Poor visibility in this congested area from fog, forest fires, and snow has caused numerous collisions and groundings. Finally, the nature of the largest lake itself, with the great expanse of over 200 miles of open water can build up terrific seas during a Superior "Northwestern" storm.
Since the first known shipwreck of a commercial vessel, the Invincible, in November 1816 to the Edmund Fitzgerald on November 10, 1975, approximately 320 lives have been lost on over 300 shipwrecks and accidents in the area known as the graveyard of the Great Lakes.
To the left is the bell taken from the hull of the Edmund Fitzgerald. The 729 ft. Edmund Fitzgerald, built in 1958, is the most famous of modern Great Lakes shipwrecks. It broke apart and sank during a violent storm off Whitefish Point in Lake Superior on November 10, 1975. All 29 crewmen were lost. The last transmission from the ship said that "they were holding their own". They had earlier radioed that they had struck something and were taking on water. One of the men at the museum was on Whitefish Point the night the ship went down and went out the next day to look for survivors, but there weren't any. They bell was removed and a bell with the crew members names took its place as a memorial to all who lost their lives. The shipwreck was made famous in Gordon Lightfoot's song " Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald".
Located 20 miles southwest of the museum is Tahquamenon State Park. The park is home to the second largest waterfalls east of the Mississippi River (Niagara Falls is the largest). Two distinctly unique waterfalls create the centerpiece for this park. The "Upper Falls". (bottom photo) is the larger and has the more dramatic drop of 50 feet and width of over 200 feet. The "Lower Falls", four miles down stream on the Tahquamenon River rushes its 50,000 gallons of water per second around an island where it is then broken into two distinct waterfalls cascading around opposite banks of the island. Each falls had a drop of 22 feet and a width of over 100 feet. It was a very impressive sight.
On Sunday we packed up once again and headed south to Columbus, Ohio to visit John, Aimee and the grandchildren, John 5 years and Morgan 3 years old. We will be there about a week before we will be on the move again...
More about our visit later, until then, we hope all is well with all our family and friends. We are glad that Hurricane "Ike" had decided to skip our part of Florida and head west.
Love to all,
Candy and Johnny
