Abstract
Thunder Bay’s maritime cultural landscape affords a unique glimpse into a community’s heritage revealed through the natural environment and the cultural modifications to that landscape. For millennia, Thunder Bay and Lake Huron have been viewed as both barriers and avenues for sustenance, transport, and commerce. Changing seasons, water levels, and conditions have simultaneously provided and taken away opportunities to use the lake and its surrounding resources. Although sparsely settled by Native Americans and occasionally visited by French and British explorers, Thunder Bay was not inhabited by European Americans until the 1830s when fishermen settled the nearby islands. Lumbermen soon followed, and as fishing camps and sawmills were erected, so to were dams, piers, navigation aids, life-saving stations, and fleets of vessels. Thunder Bay’s landscape was continually altered to facilitate commerce, but eventual economic decline resulted in abandonment of onshore and submerged structures, and ships related to particular industries. Placing shipwrecks and other cultural features within the broader context of the maritime cultural landscape presents a more complete picture of Thunder Bay’s collective maritime past.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Alpena Argus 1902 No title. Alpena Argus 14 May. Alpena, MI.
Alpena Argus 1906 No title. Alpena Argus 4 July. Alpena, MI.
Alpena Argus 1909 No title. Alpena Argus 28 April. Alpena, MI.
Alpena Argus Pioneer 1901 No title. Alpena Argus Pioneer 1 December. Alpena, MI.
Alpena Argus Pioneer 1910 No title. Alpena Argus Pioneer 6 July. Alpena, MI.
Alpena Evening News 1903 No title. Alpena Evening News 23 July. Alpena, MI. 7
Alpena Evening News 1905a No title. Alpena Evening News 4 October. Alpena, MI.
Alpena Evening News 1905b No title. Alpena Evening News 27 November. Alpena, MI.
Alpena Evening News 1905c No title. Alpena Evening News 1 December. Alpena, MI.
Alpena Evening News 1910 No title. Alpena Evening News 25 May. Alpena, MI.
Alpena Evening News 1914 No title. Alpena Evening News 23 July. Alpena, MI.
Alpena News 1916 No title. Alpena News 7 November. Alpena, MI.
Alpena News 1917 No title. Alpena News 25 September. Alpena, MI.
Alpena News 1926 No title. Alpena News 22 July. Alpena, MI.
Alpena News 1970 No title. Alpena News 17 September. Alpena, MI.
Alpena News 1974 No title. Alpena News 12 July. Alpena, MI.
Alpena News 1975 No title. Alpena News 11 July. Alpena, MI.
Alpena News 1989 No title. Alpena News 13 March. Alpena, MI.
Alpena News 2007 Special Supplement. Alpena News. Alpena, MI.
Alpena Weekly Argus 1874 No title. Alpena Weekly Argus. 21 October. Alpena, MI.
Alpena Weekly Argus 1886 No title. Alpena Weekly Argus. 28 April. Alpena, MI.
Alpena Weekly Argus 1890 No title. Alpena Weekly Argus. 22 October. Alpena, MI.
Bazzill, Dina M. 2007 The Missing Link Between Sail and Steam: Steambarges and the Joys of Door County, Wisconsin. Master’s thesis. Department of History, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC.
Boulton, William 1876 Complete History Alpena County, Michigan. Argus Books and Job Rooms, Alpena, MI.
Cleland, Charles E. 1982 The inland shore fishery of the northern Great Lakes: its development and importance in prehistory. American Antiquity 47(4):761–783.
Cleland, Charles E., Richard D. Clute, and Robert E. Haltiner 1984 Naub-Cow-Zo-Win Discs from Northern Michigan. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 9(2):235–250.
Edsall, Thomas A. and Gregory W. Kennedy 1995 Availability of Lake Trout Reproductive Habitat in the Great Lakes. Journal of Great Lakes Research 21(1):290–301.
Feltner, Charles E. and Jeri Baron Feltner 1991 Shipwrecks of the Straits of Mackinac. Seajay Publications, Dearborn, MI.
Feltner, Charles E. and Stanley J. Stock 1983 Shipwrecks of Thunder Bay, Part I. Chronicle: the Quarterly Magazine of the Historical Society of Michigan 19(3): 16–21.
Haltiner, Robert E. 1986 The Town that Wouldn’t Die: A Photographic History of Alpena, Michigan from its Beginnings through 1940. Village Press Inc., Traverse City, MI.
Haltiner, Robert E. 2002 Stories the Red People Have Told, and More: A Testimonial to N.E. Michigan’s “Long-Ago People.” Robert E. Haltiner, Alpena, MI.
Halsey, John R. and Wayne R. Lusardi (editors) 2008 Beneath the Inland Seas: Michigan’s Underwater Archaeological Heritage, 2nd edition. Michigan Department of History, Arts and Libraries, Lansing, MI.
Heldman, Donald P. 1999 Euro-American Archaeology in Michigan: the French Period. In Retrieving Michigan’s Buried Past: The Archaeology of the Great Lakes State, John R. Halsey, editor, pp. 292–311. Cranbrook Institute of Science, Bloomfield Hills, MI.
Hemming, Robert J. 1992 Ships Gone Missing: The Great Lakes Storm of 1913. Contemporary Books, Chicago, IL.
Lusardi, Wayne R. 2007a Northeast Region: Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary. In Fathoming Our Past: Historical Contexts of the National Marine Sanctuaries, Bruce G. Terrell, editor, pp. 12-15. US Department of Commerce. National Marine Sanctuary Program, Silver Spring, MD.
Lusardi, Wayne R. 2007b Accessing the Past through Archaeology: Sorting out the Schooners. Paper presented at the 40th Annual Conference on Historical and Underwater Archaeology, Williamsburg, VA.
Lusardi, Wayne R. 2009 Underwater Archaeology in the Great Lakes. In: Francis P. McManamon (editor) Archaeology in America, an Encyclopedia, vol. 2: Midwest and Great Plains/Rocky Mountains, pp. 60-66. Greenwood Press, Westport, CT.
Oliver, David D. 1903 Centennial History of Alpena County, Michigan: Giving Sketch of Michigan from its Early Settlement, Fortunes and Misfortunes of First Settlers, The Survey, Settlement and Growth of Alpena County, from 1837 to 1876. Argus Printing House, Alpena, MI.
O’Shea, John M. and Guy A. Meadows 2009 Evidence for Early Hunters Beneath the Great Lakes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106(25):10120–10123.
Pecoraro, Tiffany A. 2007 Great Lakes Ship Traps and Salvage: A Regional Analysis of an Archaeological Phenomenon. Master’s thesis, Department of History, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC.
Pilling, Arnold R. and Dean L. Anderson 1999 Euro-American Archaeology in Michigan: the British Period. In Retrieving Michigan’s Buried Past: The Archaeology of the Great Lakes State, John R. Halsey, editor, pp. 312–316. Cranbrook Institute of Science, Bloomfield Hills, MI.
Pott, Kenneth R. 1999 Underwater Archaeology in Michigan. In Retrieving Michigan’s Buried Past: The Archaeology of the Great Lakes State, John R. Halsey, editor, pp. 359–367. Cranbrook Institute of Science, Bloomfield Hills, MI.
Quaife, Milo M. 1944 The American Lake Series: Lake Michigan. The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis, IN.
Schoolcraft, Henry R. 1851 Historical and Statistical Information Respecting the History, Condition and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States. Lippincott, Grambo and Company, Philadelphia, PA.
Shott, Michael J. and Henry T. Wright 1999 The Paleo-Indians: Michigan’s First People. In Retrieving Michigan’s Buried Past: The Archaeology of the Great Lakes State, John R. Halsey, editor, pp. 59–70. Cranbrook Institute of Science, Bloomfield Hills, MI.
Stonehouse, Frederick 1992 A Short Guide to the Shipwrecks of Thunder Bay. Thunder Bay Underwater Preserve, Alpena, MI.
Thompson, Kate and Wayne R. Lusardi 2004 Lessons Beneath the Waves: Maritime Heritage Revealed through Shipwrecks. Current: The Journal of Marine Education 20(3):30–34.
Tongue, Stephen D. 2004 Lanterns and Lifeboats: A History of Thunder Bay Island. Sarge Publications, Alpena, MI.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Lusardi, W.R. (2011). Rock, Paper, Shipwreck! The Maritime Cultural Landscape of Thunder Bay. In: Ford, B. (eds) The Archaeology of Maritime Landscapes. When the Land Meets the Sea, vol 2. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-8210-0_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-8210-0_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-8209-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-4419-8210-0
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawSocial Sciences (R0)