The Great Lakes of North America have served as transportation routes for hundreds of years. Thousands of vessels, from canoes to car ferries and steamers to ore boats, have sailed these “inland seas.” Today, over 6,000 vessels in the Great Lakes have caused an estimated loss of 30,000 mariners’ lives. There are about 550 wrecks in Lake Superior, most of which are undiscovered. At least 200 wrecks lie along Lake Superior’s Shipwreck Coast, a treacherous 80-mile shoreline with no safe harbor between Munising, Michigan, and Whitefish Point. The famous Edmund Fitzgerald lies just 15 miles northwest of Whitefish Point.

Settled on the bottom of the lake, these wrecks lie in shallow water and the deepest reaches of Michigan’s 38,000 square miles of bottomlands. The wrecks are time capsules that not only provoke the imagination but also contain artifacts from another time, snatched by the forces of nature. Given the extreme depth of most of Lake Superior’s shipwrecks, wreck sites remain undisturbed.

The Great Lakes’ large size increases the risk of water travel, and storms and reefs are common threats. The lakes are prone to sudden and severe storms, particularly in autumn, from late October until early December.

Divers come to explore these shipwrecks exceptionally preserved by the cold, fresh water of the Great Lakes, even after decades underwater.

The first known European-built ship to sink in Lake Michigan was the Le Griffon, which was also the first ship to sail the Great Lakes. Caught in a storm in 1679 while trading furs between Green Bay and Michilimacinac, she was lost with all hands aboard. Its wreck may have been found in 2004, but another wreck, discovered in a different location, was also claimed in 2014 to be Le Griffon.

In September 1833, Mary Applebee planned to return home to Buffalo, New York, after visiting relatives in Ohio. Her nephew, a local ship captain, cautioned her to wait and return home on a new steamer that was almost finished. However, she was impatient and booked passage on the schooner New Connecticut instead. When a storm sent the ship tumbling onto its side, the crew escaped, but there was no sign of Applebee. Five days later, when a salvage crew righted the schooner, Applebee walked up the stairs and onto the deck. Her unexpected appearance was so shocking that the sailors screamed in fright. She explained that she had become trapped below deck when the vessel rolled. She spent nearly a week in waist-deep water, with just a wet cracker and an onion to sustain her. Applebee and the badly damaged ship were returned to safety on shore.

The Goliath, carrying a flammable cargo of shingles, lumber, and hay, was also loaded with about 180 kegs of blasting powder for its journey from Detroit to Lake Superior in September 1848. A fire started as it neared Saginaw Bay in Michigan, likely sparked by sparks from smokestacks. The fire quickly spread through the combustible cargo as the crew frantically tried to extinguish it. About five miles from shore, the blaze reached the powder keg’s hold, causing a massive explosion, visible and felt for miles. Only the ship’s cook survived. Figuring the ship was doomed, he lowered a small boat and fled, escaping just before the powder exploded.

The Sunbeam was caught in a storm carrying 35 people across Lake Superior in August 1863. The ship was soon overcome and couldn’t keep its bow into the wind. Many of the passengers and crew crowded into overloaded lifeboats. With no room left, one of the sailors gave up his spot to a woman. He jumped into the water and tied himself to some floating wreckage, where he watched helplessly as the lifeboats tipped over, spilling their passengers into the lake. After riding from trough to peak in the waves, the Sunbeam eventually rolled onto its side and sank. In the meantime, the sailor floated for 18 hours until the waves washed him onto a ledge within some shoreline cliffs. He spent two days there, too exhausted to move until a small boat sailing along the coast spotted him.

As the Civil War was raging, an island near Sandusky, Ohio, was used to house Confederate prisoners of war. In September 1864, a group of Confederates, led by a spy, Major C.H. Cole, hijacked two passenger steamers, the Philo Parsons and the Island Queen, on Lake Erie. They planned to capture the SS Michigan, guarding the prison island. Major Cole was known in the area as a wealthy merchant and was invited aboard the SS Michigan. He planned to drug the wine that the officers would have with their dinner, but his plot was discovered. To escape, the Confederates scuttled the Island Queen and tried to flee to Canada on the Philo Parsons. They were within sight of land when Union forces sank their ship.

The Equinox, with 25 passengers and crew, was full of cargo and towing the schooner Emma A. Mays when it was caught in a nighttime storm near Ludington, Michigan, on Lake Michigan in September 1875. Shortly after the tow rope linking the two ships was suddenly cut, the Equinox rolled over onto its port side and sank. The Mays, under sail and unable to maneuver easily in the storm, continued to Chicago, Illinois. Two days later, another ship arrived in Chicago carrying Reuben Burr, the only survivor from the Equinox. He recalled how the ship had been taking on water when it rolled over unexpectedly. He and the cook made it onto a piece of floating wreckage, but after hours in the storm, the cook grew weak and was swept away. Burr was lucky to be found, still clinging to the wreckage, by a passing ship the next day.

The 300-foot steel steamer Western Reserve, known as an “Inland Greyhound,” was lost in August 1892, when it cracked in half while moving through large waves and sank during a storm 60 miles off Michigan’s coast, with only one survivor among the 27 people on board. One of the first all-steel passenger/cargo ships on the Great Lakes, it was faster, lighter, and could carry more cargo than any other ship on the Great Lakes at that time. The ship was discovered in the deep waters of Lake Superior, 60 miles off Whitefish Point, by the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society in late summer 2024. Though it was built for speed and safety, it broke apart in a storm.

Only two months after the loss of the Western Reserve, its sister ship, the SS W.H. Gilcher, mysteriously disappeared from Lake Michigan. At 2:20 p.m. on October 28, 1892, the Gilcher sailed past Mackinaw, Michigan, and was never seen again. Days later, wreckage began to wash up on the shores of the Manitou Islands. Eventually, the bodies of two crewmen in life preservers were found on South Fox Island. However, it is unknown what happened to the ship, as it was never found.

The Great Lakes Storm of 1913, also known as the Big Blow and the White Hurricane, was a powerful blizzard with hurricane-force winds that struck the Great Lakes Basin from November 7 to 10. The storm peaked on November 9, particularly affecting Lake Huron, and became the deadliest natural disaster in the region’s history, claiming over 250 lives. The storm caused significant disruption to shipping, destroying 19 ships and stranding another 19, with approximately $1 million in cargo lost. Cities like Duluth, Chicago, and Cleveland experienced severe impacts, including up to 22 inches of snow and winds of 79 mph. The United States Weather Bureau’s failure to predict the storm’s intensity and slow communication worsened the disaster.

The SS Eastland was a passenger ship based in Chicago, Illinois. On July 24, 1915, the ship capsized while tied to a dock in the Chicago River, killing 844 passengers and crew, the largest loss of life from a single shipwreck on the Great Lakes. The passenger ship, known for its instability and top-heavy design, rolled over while docked, with most of the victims being Western Electric employees at a company picnic. After the disaster, Eastland was salvaged and sold to the United States Navy. After restorations and modifications, Eastland was designated a gunboat and renamed USS Wilmette, primarily used as a training vessel on the Great Lakes. She was scrapped after World War II.

The SS Edmund Fitzgerald plowed through towering waves to lead its sister ship, the SS Arthur M. Anderson, on a journey to deliver iron ore. But the 25-foot waves were too much for the Edmund Fitzgerald, which snapped in two, sinking to the bottom of Lake Superior on November 10, 1975, with its 29-person crew. It was the largest and last major freighter wrecked on the lakes. Though the ship was later found, the cause of its sinking remains a mystery.

Still missing are the two last warships to sink in the Great Lakes, the French minesweepers Inkerman and Cerisoles, which vanished in Lake Superior during a blizzard in 1918. It was the most significant loss of life in Lake Superior and the most significant unexplained loss in the Great Lakes, killing 78 people.

In 2007, the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society announced that it had found the wreckage of Cyprus, a 420-foot-long, century-old ore carrier. During its second voyage, Cyprus sank during a Lake Superior storm on October 11, 1907, while hauling iron ore from Superior, Wisconsin, to Buffalo, New York. The entire crew of 23 drowned except one, Charles Pitz, who floated on a life raft for almost seven hours.

In 2008, deep-sea divers in Lake Ontario discovered the wreck of the 1780 Royal Navy warship HMS Ontario, described as an “archaeological miracle”. There are no plans to raise her as the site is treated as a war grave.