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Sault Star - October 29, 2011 - Lake Superior shipwreck stories enough to blow you away

4/11/2012

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Picture
Golspie after it was first launched as the Osceola in June 1882
Superior’s Gales are once again upon us.  While we huddle in our 21st century homes
listening to the shuddering soffit, the wind whistle down the chimney, hoping the neighbors tree doesn’t decide to drop itself on our garage, it is hard to imagine the plight of shipwrecked souls caught out on Superior in days past. The violence, bone-chilling temperatures and the unforgiving topography of the east shore of the largest Great Lake is legendary.

The earliest known shipwreck north of Montreal River Harbour was a passenger-freight steamer called the ACADIA.  During heavy seas, the boat ran aground near Grindstone Point south of  Old Woman Bay on November 6, 1896.  Built in Hamilton in 1867, the ACADIA was the first vessel built in North America to have a composite hull (oak planking over iron frames).  Loaded with 21,000 bushels of wheat, a hole in the hull sank the ship in 20 minutes in 12 feet of water.  Before it could be salvaged, the ACADIA was pummelled to pieces by the constant wave action on this exposed rocky point.  The crew survived but had to make the long and arduous trek to Gargantua Harbour more than 15 kilometres away. On a calm day kayakers and canoeists alike can still catch glimpses of twisted pieces of the ACADIA’s steel hull trapped  among the giant boulders at Grindstone Point.  The ships bell is now on display at the Agawa Bay Visitor Centre.

The imposing cliffs and impenetrable shoreline of Old Woman Bay claimed the wreck of the GOSPIE on December 4, 1906.  This 200 foot wooden steamer belonging to the MacKay Company of Sault Ste. Marie was downbound from Fort William with a load of supplies for the CPR when it became unresponsive during a fierce snow storm. The ship and its crew of 18 drifted approximately 60 miles/100 kms north from 25 miles off Whitefish Point to where it beached itself near the south of the Old Woman River.  Captain Boult managed to get everyone safely to shore only to find that they had very  few provisions.  He sent 12 of the  crew in a yawl boat to Michipicoten River where they could get supplies and send word to the ship’s owners.  Ill prepared for the fierce head wind and bone-chilling temperatures, the wet and weary crew abandoned the small boat and decided to walk along the coast to
Michipicoten instead.  Needless to say the journey was no easy task.  The Canadians in the crew fared better than the newly landed immigrants  who were quickly overcome with the cold and suffered from their lack of experience in the bush.

Imagine the surprise of Joe Legarde and his guests when 3 of the crew stumbled through the doors of the North Star Boarding House in Michipicoten River Village in the middle of the night.  The next morning, William Kimball, John Andre, Alex and Joseph Michaud manoeuvred a rescue boat out through the treacherous Michipicoten River mouth and scoured the shoreline for the remainder of the crew.  Four miles from the village the rescuers came across the half frozen men, one walking in his stocking feet.  The villagers spent the next day trying to warm the frozen hands and feet of the motley group.  Joe Legarde’s dog team took the worst of the crew to the Algoma Central Railway in Michipicoten Harbour where they were transported to the care of Dr. Grimshaw at  the Helen Mine.

On December 20, 1906, five of the GOLSPIE sailors arrived by tug in Sault Ste. Marie and underwent amputations for severely frost-bitten limbs.  One of the men
lost both his hands and his feet.  One poor soul succumbed to the ordeal after he contracted pneumonia.   A letter to the Editor of  the Sault Star on December 11, 1906 reported that an investigation by Magistrate George Reid found that the crew members were to blame for their own fate.   The plight of the GOLSPIE was the
subject of much parliamentary debate.   The parliament of the day used this tragedy as an argument for developing  workmen’s compensation which was gaining greater support during the  administration of Prime Minister Wilfred  Laurier.

Little remains of the GOLSPIE.  Some remember a ship’s boiler near the mouth of the Old Woman River. Early scuba divers remember a sunken  wooden deck in the southwest corner of the picturesque cove.   Rainbow fishermen sometimes snag wooden ribs reaching out of the sandy  bottom of the bay while trying to catch the big one.  Although little can be found of Superior’s sunken vessels, the stories and tales will continue to instil a sense of wonder and awe about the Lake, especially when the gales of November are upon  us.

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April 23, 2011 - Sault Star - Superior Lightkeepers and the Lambton

10/12/2011

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Picture
Michipicoten Island East End Light c. 2005
As the spring sun begins to shrink the layers of ice on our lakes and streams, mariners and Coast Guard personnel answer the call to return to navigate Superior’s clear blue waters.  Although the number of vessels and passengers along the rugged east Superior shoreline has dramatically decreased over the past century, the dramatic scenery, vast expanses of remote shoreline and hidden dangers remain unchanged.

The Government of Canada commissioned the construction of lighthouses to guide the growing number of Captain’s plying the unpredictable Superior coastline.  The first lighthouse on Lake Superior was built at Quebec Harbour on the south shore of Michipicoten Island in 1872.  In 1886, the most remote lighthouse on the entire Great Lakes was constructed on a tiny island next to Caribou Island, 48 kilometres south of Quebec Harbour and 104 kilometres southwest of the nearest shipping port at Michipicoten Harbour. In 1889 a small lighthouse was built to guide fishing vessels and vacationers to the sheltered docks of Gargantua Harbour.  The ore boats and passenger steamers welcomed the wooden lighthouse at Perkwakwia Point near Michipicoten Harbour in 1902. 

Navigation upgrades to the active shipping lanes along the eastern shoreline meant a new light station at Caribou in 1911, a similar lighthouse tower on the East End of Michipicoten Island in 1912 and a new light standard and lighthouse in Quebec Harbour and nearby Davieux Island in 1918.

The men and women who were given the responsibility of maintaining these beacons of light and safe haven were both resilient and resourceful.  Three generations of the Davieux family manned the Quebec Harbour and Davieux Island lights on Michipicoten Island.  For almost 6 decades, three generations of the Miron family were keepers of the tiny Gargantua light at the entrance to Gargantua Harbour.

William Sherlock was the first keeper at the Michipicoten Island East End light from 1912 to 1923.  He made headlines in 1913 when he decided that he and his family would not return to Sault Ste. Marie in December to wait out the winter season.  His frugal reasoning saved him the cost of city rent and was no doubt safer than taking passage on Superior during the most unpredictable time of the year.  William’s name made it to print again in December of 1916 when The Sault Star described the harrowing journey made by William and his son at the end of the shipping season.  Caught in a sub-zero northeasterly storm, the 45 km trip from Michipicoten Island to Gargantua Harbour took over a week, half of which was spent in their 18 foot boat in the open water, and the other half was spent walking in the snow from Sand River to Gargantua.

William Sherlock’s final headline took place in December of 1918 when George Johnston, the lightkeeper at the nearby Caribou Light telegraphed the Department of Marine in Ottawa that William had not showed up on the mainland at the end of the shipping season. Neither William nor his boat  were ever recovered.  William’s wife and two children assumed responsibility for maintaining the East End Light until 1923. 

In 1915, the Canadian government advised all lighthouse keepers that due to cost-cutting measures, employees and their families would no longer be transported to and from their points of charge at the beginning and ending of the shipping season.  Many felt that this bureaucratic decision sealed the fate of William Sherlock and feared that more Superior light keepers would meet the same end.  George Johnston and his assistant at the Caribou Island light waited 10 days after the end of the shipping season on December 15, 1919 before a break in the weather finally allowed them to set sail for Quebec Harbour.  Ice formations and a winter storm held them fast in the Harbour and then on Michipicoten Bay for 8 days until they finally reached the mainland on New Year’s Day.

In 1921, Ottawa finally relented and commissioned the Canadian Government Ship Lambton to transport all the lighthouse keepers and their supplies to and from their lights. In mid-April 1922 the Lambton set sail from Sault Ste. Marie during a late winter storm and delivered the Miron family and their supplies at Gargantua Harbour.  On April 19 the Lambton left the shelter of the small fishing station heading north and was never seen again.  As the shipping season commenced, vessels navigating the east shore reported that none of the lighthouses north of Gargantua were operating.  Somewhere between Gargantua and Caribou Island on April 19, 1922, the CGS Lambton sank with all 22 passengers on board including George Penefold who was George Johnston`s replacement keeper for the Caribou Island Light, and William Reid, keeper of the Michipicoten Harbour light since 1915.

Many of the lighthouses and the keeper`s dwellings have been torn down. The Gargantua lighthouse was washed away in November 1940.  The Michipicoten Harbour light house was the last to be automated on the Ontario shoreline in 1991.  The Davieaux Island light continues to shine.  The Caribou Island and Michipicoten East End Light are the only 3 active flying-buttress style lighthouses remaining out of 6 built across Canada in the early 1900`s.  In 2011 the remote Caribou Island lighthouse celebrates a century of safely guiding ship`s Captains through the unpredictable Superior waters.
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    Johanna Rowe

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