They have glass bottom boats where you can view some of the shipwrecks in some places. Clive Cussler even wrote a book about a shipwreck in Lake Michigan. I don't remember the title though. When we crossed the bridge this past summer we saw a full on cruise ship off the coast of Mackinac Island.
You are viewing a single comment's thread from:
I just looked into it a little more because I was pretty sure large ships could go between Superior, Huron, and Lake Michigan but wasn't sure if someone could go with a large ship clear from the Atlantic all the way into Lake Superior. This is what it said. Pretty amazing.
Upper Great Lakes vs. the full system
The Great Lakes Waterway is naturally divided into two sections by Niagara Falls. The upper lakes—Superior, Michigan, Huron, and Erie—are navigable by the largest vessels on the lakes through the Soo Locks, but access to Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence Seaway is restricted.
Upper Great Lakes passage
Access: Large vessels can travel between Lake Superior, Michigan, Huron, and Erie by using the Soo Locks at Sault Ste. Marie.
Vessel size: These locks, particularly the Poe Lock, can accommodate vessels up to 1,200 feet long and 110 feet wide. This allows for the "thousand-footers" or "lakers," which are the largest ships on the lakes, to move freely between these four bodies of water.
You might have already researched into the largest ship to go down.
The largest shipwreck in the Great Lakes is the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, a 729-foot (222-meter) long freighter that sank on Lake Superior on November 10, 1975. The ship went down in a powerful storm, taking its entire 29-member crew with it. The mystery of its sinking, the loss of life, and its immense size have made it the most famous shipwreck on the Great Lakes, inspiring a famous song and ongoing historical research.
The Soo Locks are pretty cool. They are actually building a new larger one right now. I wrote a post about them a while ago when we made a visit there a few years ago. After 9/11 things got really restricted and you can't just walk up to the locks now like you used to be able to. They have military barricades and those bullards that shoot up from the ground now to keep vehicles with bombs from getting too close. If you head to the tip of Whitefish Pointe just north of Paradise Michigan, they have a shipwreck museum there. The give the Edmund Fitzgerald a pretty hefty amount of attention there. I also wrote a post about the museum a few years ago. I've been to both those areas probably dozens of times since I was a kid.
Also the premise that there are islands in the Great Lakes where people live always fascinates me as well. I have done quite a bit of research about real estate in Northern Michigan. I really like it up there but the UP is losing population. For me it might be more about visiting regularly unless things really get bad. Like Nuclear strikes and I have to go way North.