Category Archives: Boating, Diving & Beaches

Winter on Sturgeon Bay

Here’s a gorgeous time-lapse exploration of winter on Sturgeon Bay near Cross Village Michigan. Jay Burlage of Milapse writes that it’s a great place to get away from it all and enjoy a cold snowy place for a bit. The music track is ‘Farlem’ by Galdson, and here’s hoping this will give you a little [...]

Invasive Species in the National Parks

Goby by swatzo Last year the National Park Service produced a series of short documentaries exploring invasive species in the Great Lakes. The series was funded by the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative showing how invaders are changing the ecosystems in national parks and what’s being done to stop them. All four of them are available [...]

The Lake in Winter: an excerpt from The Windward Shore

Works by Michigan author Jerry Dennis include The Living Great Lakes, Winter Walks (with wood engravings by Glenn Wolff and design and letterpress by Chad Pastotnik of Deep Woods Press), A Place on the Water, It’s Raining Frogs and Fishes, Canoeing Michigan Rivers and more. Jerry has kindly allowed us to run this excerpt from his [...]

Seeking Michigan: The Wreck of the Carl D. Bradley

By Valerie van Heest and courtesy Seeking Michigan and the Archives of Michigan. The goal of Seeking Michigan is simple: to connect you to the stories of this great state. Visit them regularly for a dynamic & evolving look at Michigan’s cultural heritage and read more from Seeking Michigan on Absolute Michigan! We have added the trailer [...]

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald edited by Joseph Fulton

Today is the 36th anniversary of the sinking of the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald, and if you’re in Michigan, you’ll probably hear The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald by Gordon Lightfoot today. I’m pretty sure, however, that you won’t enjoy it more than when you’re watching this video. Joseph Fulton put together this amazing tribute to [...]

Freshwater Fury: The Great Storm of 1913

Dear wife and Children. We were left up here in Lake Michigan by McKinnon, captain James H. Martin tug, at anchor. He went away and never said goodbye or anything to us. Lost one man yesterday. We have been out in storm forty hours. Goodbye dear ones, I might see you in Heaven. Pray for [...]

Michigan Underwater Preserves: Alger Underwater Diving Preserve

Graveyard Coast II by Michigan Nut michiganpreserves.org explains that although the vast inland waterway of the Great Lakes provided natural highway, there were also dangerous, fraught with sudden storms, fog, heavy traffic and shipping companies who cared more about the bottom line than the thousands of schooners, steamers and barges that ended up on the [...]

DNR Uncut: Michigan State Parks Capture Top National Award

Here’s a “guest” post from the Michigan DNR. We say “guest” in that we copied and pasted it from their website. Great parks, great news.  Collectively Falling – Bond Falls by Aaron C. Jors The Department of Natural Resources announced today that Michigan state parks and recreation areas have won the 2011 National Recreation and [...]

The Three Sisters

When you’re in a storm in big water, you can look for about every seventh wave to be a big one. Now your ship is designed to weather this, but there’s something you should know. These are not lakes, these are the world’s eighth seas, and her bottoms are littered with the wreckage of over [...]

Sinking Ships for Money

ship wreck by hoperenewed In November Absolute Michigan always features shipping and shipwrecks, and while most of the stories are tragic, Great Lakes Echo has a feature about a Michigan lawmaker who hopes to sink ships to boost tourism revenue: Some tourism officials question if the expensive and lengthy process of cleaning and sinking a [...]