Too Much Sea for Their Decks: Shipwrecks of Minnesota's North Shore and Isle Royale [Hardcover]

Shipwreck stories from along Minnesota’s north shore of Lake Superior and Isle Royale

Against the backdrop of the extraordinary history of Great Lakes shipping,Too Much Sea for Their Deckschronicles shipwrecked schooners, wooden freighters, early steel-hulled steamers, whalebacks, and bulk carriers—some well-known, some unknown or forgotten—all lost in the frigid waters of Lake Superior.

Included are compelling accounts of vessels destined for infamy, such as that of theStranger, a slender wooden schooner swallowed by the lake in 1875, the sailors’ bodies never recovered nor the wreckage ever found; an account of the whalebackWilson, rammed by a large commercial freighter in broad daylight and in calm seas, sinking before many on board could escape; and the mysterious loss of theKamloops, a package freighter that went down in a storm and whose sailors were found on the Isle Royale the following spring, having escaped the wreck only to die of exposure on the island. Then there is the ill-fatedSteinbrenner, plagued by bad luck from the time of her construction, when she was nearly destroyed by fire, to her eventual (and tragic) sinking in 1953. These tales and more represent loss of life and property—and are haunting stories of brave and heroic crews.

Arranged chronologically and presented in three sections covering Minnesota's North Shore, Isle Royale, and the three biggest storms in Minnesota’s Great Lakes history (the 1905Mataafastorm, the 1913 hurricane on the lakes, and the 1940 Armistice Day storm), each shipwreck documented within these pages provides a piece to the history of shipping on Lake Superior.

Michael Schumacher has written five previous books on Great Lakes shipwrecks:Mighty Fitz,November’s Fury,Torn in Two,The Trial of theEdmund Fitzgerald (all from Minnesota), andWreck of theCarl D. He haslóx