the deadliest profession...

 Day five, we left Sault Ste. Marie, heading west then north through Paradise and on further and further north to the community of Whitefish Point, on the shore of Lake Superior, and home of the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum.  A few days ago I wrote about the dangerous life and work of lumberjacks, cutting and hauling huge logs.  Having explored the Shipwreck Museum, I have now concluded that being a sailor on Lake Superior was exponentially more dangerous.  I'm sorry I didn't write down the numbers of ships and lives lost in the transport of coal, copper and iron from the mines, and logs from the forests.  During the 19th and early 20th centuries, storms, fog, freezing weather, lack of lighthouses and collisions due to lack of radar contributed to hundreds of wrecks on Lake Superior.  Many of the wrecks happened during the month of November, as they pushed to get the last loads through before 'real' winter set in.  I was surprised to learn that the ill-fated "Edmund Fitzgerald," made famous in the song, sank on November 10, 1975.  I had no idea it was such an historically recent disaster. I was also surprised because November 10 is my daughter's birthday.  She was two that year.  A side note - one of the buildings of the museum housed a rescue boat of the kind used by brave men to row out to shipwreck sites to try to rescue the sailors as the ships went down.     I highly recommend this museum.  

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This is a view of the staircase leading up to the lighthouse tower.  We weren't allowed to climb up (not too disappointed about that) but we did get to tour the housing for lighthouse keepers and their families.

The museum is housed in several buildings from the time that the lighthouse was in operation.