Lake Superior

Waiting at Marquette.

Beach, Pictured Rocks National Seashore, Lake Superior, Michigan.

McLain State Park is west of Calumet, in Michigan's Copper Country on the Keweenaw Peninsula. While there are many other reasons to visit the area, the sunsets alone can justify the trip. This photo was taken in July of 1998 with my Nikon N90s

Photo taken on the main harbor's breakwater at Marquette, in August, 'round 'bout 1990. We were taking the long way home from a weekend in Two Harbors, Minnesota. Looks like Dick's about to take a photo of the old downtown ore dock. Neither of us is very good at portraits, from either end of the lens; moveover, if either is carrying a camera, generally we're both carrying two. Regardless, this one came out well....

Missabe Railroad's Duluth Docks. Now Kaye E. Barker. (Thanks, NIN) I love Duluth. Camera: Minolta Freedom 100

Downtown Marquette, photographed from a tour boat in--well, I think it was 1990. I'd planned to write an essay about this harbor's industrial history, but that will have to wait. I do want to mention that the trestle at the left side of the photo, which leads to the old downtown ("South Shore") iron ore dock, was removed a few years back. ( Andy Larsen has pictures , of course.) The dock remains, and the city's continuing to reclaim the harbor. Camera: Minolta Freedom 100

Marquette has two ore docks; the long-abandoned downtown dock and the Upper Harbor (commonly called Presque Isle, or LS&I) dock pictured here. This is a grainy picture, but it shows good detail about the operation of this old gravity dock. As you can see, there are excellent vantages for watching that labor at this dock. The photo dates from around 1990. When the Lake Superior and Ishpeming Railroad built the Presque Isle dock in 1912, this was a state-of-the-art structure. It's now well past its prime, but it's a great place to watch ships. And trains. Camera: Minolta Freedom 100

LS&I Dock, Marquette. The ship in the background is Lee A. Tregurtha. 1990, I believe. Camera: Minolta 110 Zoom SLR

And today we prove the possibility of taking an excellent photograph with an inexpensive camera.... Took this photo by pointing my camera out my hotel window in Houghton on the prettiest fall weekend I remember, in late September of 1990. The Keweenaw National Park was not "real" at this time but while we were in the vicinity we had some contact with the efforts which would create it. The wreck of a building complex across the Portage River was the Quincy Copper Smelter in Ripley--it still stands, more or less, and folks still hope to restore it. That would be worthwhile, but I'll believe it when it happens. Like Cliffs Shaft Mine and Painesdale's Champion, these buildings were last fully active in 1967, but have not stood up nearly so well. The ship in the foreground is Ranger III--transportation to Isle Royale National Park--and the buildings in the foreground are a part of that truly remote park. I was in town for a meeting of the South Shore Special Interest Group (DSS&A SIG) of the Soo Line Historical & Technical Society, which was just forming at the time (the SIG, not the Society). We spent the weekend touring mining locations, looking over old rolling stock, and sharing stories. A good time. This photo has often been mistaken for a model railroad picture. Nope: A photo from real life. Camera: Minolta Freedom 100

This ship is Presque Isle heading into Lake Superior from Sault Ste. Marie in the summer of 1992 (I think). When Presque Isle was under the control of Litton Industries, the hull was black ; since her lease (then sale) to the Steel Fleet, she's been red. This certainly looks like a transition paint job. The odd paint plainly shows why this is no ordinary Laker. The red hull's a very large barge, and the black paint defines the tug which propels the barge. Litton had a notion that they could reduce the operational costs by creating a barge/tug combination which could be staffed according to Coast Guard regulations governing such combination vessels. That didn't work out for Litton--the two are apparently too closely integrated to be a convincing combination--but the model's worked for owners who've converted existing hulls to similar configurations. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When we were at the Soo last summer it looked someone seemed to be building condos where I took this picture. Good place to live, but it won't help the view.... Camera: Chinon Genesis III

S/S William Clay Ford--once Walter A. Sterling, now Lee A. Tregurtha--passes under the Duluth Aerial Lift Bridge on a grey August day in 1988. We were in Duluth to attend the annual convention of the Missabe Railroad Historical Society. The Ford had been loading at the DMIR docks earlier in the day--I have more photos--and we made a point of being at the Duluth Ship Canal when she left for points south. Notable: This is the second ship to bear William Clay Ford's name and is not the ship whose pilot house overlooks the Detroit River at the Dossin Museum on Belle Isle. Camera: Minolta Freedom 100

Breakers, at Marquette (from at or near McCarty's Cove, it looks like), on a dark June day in 1992. Camera: Chinon Genesis III

In June of every year the Corps of Engineers holds an open house at the Soo Locks, and thousands of fans show up to explore the grounds, view the passing ships from an unusual perspective, and look over the exhibits. Yesterday was that day, and Joan and I were among the crowd. Here we see some of the visitors crossing the massive gate which holds back Lake Superior at the the downriver end of the 105 foot wide Poe Lock. While Sault Ste. Marie is an ancient city by North American standards--the first white settlers arrived in the 1500s, and there's been a city at this location since 1638--the event which defines the modern Sault occurred on June 18, 1855, when a ship named the Illinois traversed the then-new Soo Locks and opened traffic between Lake Superior and the rest of the Great Lakes--thus connecting the Lake Superior iron and copper mines to the eastern United States. The locks have been rebuilt and expanded since then, but the traffic's been constant, and constitute an important part of the American economy. They're celebrating the sesquicentennial this summer, and the celebration began yesterday. We missed the opening ceremony, but had a fine time wandering the grounds and watching as St. Clair and Herbert C. Jackson passed through the locks yesterday.

Explored! #171 on Flickr [February 9, 2008] Thanks! Your classic postcard shot of the delightful light at Eagle Harbor, on Lake Superior in Michigan's Copper Country. Now a museum of local history, and well worth the visit. Yes, I pushed the color a bit. The light is still functioning.

Unloading coal at Ontonagon, Michigan.

A not-very-good photo--through the windshield, over a junk pile--of the lighthouse at Ontonagon, Michigan.

August 1990: The ship named Presque Isle beside the ore dock called Presque Isle in Marquette, Michigan. Beyond the dock is Marquette's Presque Isle Park, which may explain something. But the ship's probably named after Erie's Presque Isle. I posted another photo of this ship some time ago, with a comment on the mixed paint job the ship would be sporting a couple years hence. This photo shows the original paint scheme. The ship is unloading coal into the conveyor system known as the Presque Isle Coal Dock. A piece of that facility clips the upper right corner of the photo. The conveyor moves the coal to piles around Wisconsin Electric Power's generating plant (still another facility named Presque Isle). Strangely, the (ship) Presque Isle is too wide for the ore dock to reach the hold's center, so she'll head elsewhere for an ore load. Properly speaking, Presque Isle is not a ship at all; she's a barge with a tug boat built into her stern. If you study the details in this photo, you'll see how they fit together.

Here's a better illustration of the layout of the Marquette upper harbor coal dock. The ship Presque Isle is snugged up against the ore dock, and has run its unloader to the coal dock. The whole thing's conveyors and similar transport mechanisms. The really neat thing about the Marquette upper harbor is how close you can get to the boats. This photo shows that well.