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+--- Thread: Maps of Great Lakes shipwrecks detail one of North America’s biggest graveyards (/thread-12050.html)
Maps of Great Lakes shipwrecks detail one of North America’s biggest graveyards - C C - Apr 8, 2022
https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/great-lakes-shipwrecks/
EXCERPT: Shipwrecks on the Great Lakes? It sounds preposterous. Shipwrecks are supposed to happen on the wild and unpredictable open seas. How could they possibly occur on lakes, which are entirely enclosed by land? Besides, how high do the Great Lakes’ waves even get? And how far can the nearest port of shelter really be?
You’d be surprised. There are enough sunken ships in these lakes to justify a Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum (at Whitefish Point Light Station on the northern shore of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, near the eastern end of Lake Superior). There are over 6,000 shipwrecks in the Great Lakes, which have claimed an estimated 30,000 lives. About 550 ships rest at the bottom of Lake Superior alone, “most of which are undiscovered,” says the museum website.
At least 200 lie along the particularly treacherous 80-mile stretch of Lake Superior shoreline, which bears the cautionary nickname “Shipwreck Coast.” Nearby is the Edmund Fitzgerald, which at 730 feet is the largest (and undoubtedly, the most famous) of the Great Lakes shipwrecks... (MORE - missing details)