Along Lake Michigan : Shipwreck Stories of Life and Loss

Notable shipwrecks of Lake Michigan throughout a century of enterprise, industry, heroism, and disaster on the Great Lakes The Great Lakes are graveyards of a vast number of shipwrecks (30,000 by some estimates), and Lake Michigan has more than the other four lakes combined.The stories of those wrecks tell the history of that mighty lake in its endless, mercurial challenge to human endeavor. Surveying the wreckage throughout the decades, from the fiery end of the twin propeller-driven Phoenix in 1847 to the failure of the Anna Minch to outrun the infamous 1940 Armistice Day storm, Michael Schumacher charts the course of shipping disasters great and small on Lake Michigan.He illuminates the details of maritime weather and shipcraft, the lives devoted to and lost on the water, and the mistakes and monumental failures that led to these ships’ watery ends. Schumacher’s deft storytelling, drawing from deep research and comprehensive knowledge, brings forth the vivid details of the last minu