Prepare to Be Blown Away!
Freshwater Fury Rages at the Door County Maritime Museum Beginning May 24, 2008

 

Freshwater Fury
“Erie, and Ontario, and Huron, and Superior, and Michigan – possess an ocean-like expansiveness, with many of the ocean’s noblest traits . . . they are swept by Borean and dismasting blasts as direful as any that lash the salted wave; they know what shipwrecks are, for out of sight of land, however inland, they have drowned full many a midnight ship with all its shrieking crew.”
                                                                         Herman Melville, “Moby Dick”

In his novel, Melville singles out the bitter defeat of sailors by nature and understood the ferocity of the lake’s fury. Singly each lake is an inland sea, larger, more dangerous, and with dirtier weather than many. Their violent winter seas can lift a steel freighter as if she were a canoe and turn her over or set her broken on the shore.

In November of 1913, one of the worst storms in recorded history occurred. Not only chaos on the lakes, but also the disruption of communications and travel across seven states and Canadian provinces for days. In Cleveland, the city hardest hit of all, commerce, public utilities, and traffic came to a standstill.

The stories from this storm were many – some true, some false, some overstated, some understated, but all incredible. The men who lived through this storm never forgot the force of the wind, the blinding blizzard, the tumult of the seas, the staggering loss of lives and ships. How many lost will never be known – over 250 at sea and on land.

To this day, the secret of why many freighters foundered remains buried at the bottom of the lakes. Two weeks before the navigation season was to close and ships were safe in winter berths, practically without warning, Freshwater Fury sent a score of modern freighters to their doom. Twelve ships disappeared with all hands, leaving nothing to tell of their last battle with the sea.

 “There have been many storms in the past supposedly violent, but this one was unprecedented. It raged with uncommon force, especially on Lake Huron, and proved to be the most destructive in the history of the lakes. As nearly as can be traced, 235 sailors lost their lives in this storm, 44 of them on Lake Superior, 7 on Lake Michigan, 6 on Lake Erie, and 178 of them on Lake Huron. The storm threw a great pall over lake shipping and practically demoralized lake trade for the balance of the season.”
                          Annual Report, Lake Carriers Association, Cleveland, Ohio 1913

The Door County Maritime Museum’s staff and volunteers have completed the new exhibit “Freshwater Fury,” which tells the amazing tale of the greatest storm ever recorded on the Great Lakes, which took place in November 1913.   Many of us living in the Great Lakes region are all too familiar with the powerful weather we see in fall and winter. While this occurs with some regularity, there are probably a dozen storms noted for their severity, causing extensive losses of life and property. It is argued as to which is the more powerful or destructive, but is generally agreed the November 7-10th storm of 1913 was one of the worst on record – with a death toll of 235 or more, and upwards of 40 shipwrecks, 11 sinking with all hands. Freezing water, 35-foot waves, 75 mph winds, a lack of sophisticated communication and weather forecasting all played a part in the disaster. And in the wake of the storm were the dead, the stricken vessels, and the survivors. By presenting historic photographs, newspaper articles, and the personal accounts of lake masters and their crew, we will look at the ships and ask why they sank or how they survived. We invite visitors to step onto the deck of a ship about to sink; watch the storm’s fury from a virtual pilothouse; or don a life-vest and telegraph a call in distress in hopes of a returning assurance of help.

Weather forecasters of the time did not have enough data or understanding of atmospheric dynamics to predict the storm’s growth – data collected was already hours behind the actual weather event. With the help of Green Bay’s WLUK meteorologist Tara Hastings, we will present a weather model recreating the storm’s development and path as it happened in 1913.  We will show images along the shore and in Cleveland where blizzards paralyzed the region under snow and ice, causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage (1913 dollars). Power was out for days across Michigan, northern Ohio, and Ontario, cutting off telephone and telegraph communications.

From the aftermath we have stories of those sailors who weathered the storm, photographs, newspaper accounts, and personal mementos.  We will show the taped interview of wheelsman Ed Kanaby of the stranded freighter H.A. Hawgood, and actual footage a life-saving team’s drill of 1914. There were also several long-tem consequences of the storm resulting in more accurate weather forecasting and better communication of proper storm warnings. Criticism of the shipping companies and shipbuilders led to safer designs for vessels with greater stability and strength. Even today, as improved as technology has become, storms act with an unpredictable violence on the Lakes – and we have the stories and footage of those freighters still fighting the freshwater fury of November’s Great Lakes.

Freshwater Fury opened to the public on Saturday, May 24, 2008 and has now been extended through January of 2010.  Museum is open 7 days per week; 9AM – 6PM Memorial Day through Labor Day, and 10AM - 5PM in the off-season.   Admission is $7 for adults and $4 for children.  The Museum’s Sturgeon Bay headquarters is located at 120 N. Madison Ave., Sturgeon Bay, WI and can be reached by phoning 920.743.5958 or via our website at www.dcmm.org.