Courtesy Photo Pictured above is Bruce Lynn, director of the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point, who will speak at 7 p.m. Thursday in Alpena.

The U.S. Life-Saving Service on Superior’s Shipwreck Coast is next in the Sanctuary Lecture Series, presented by Bruce Lynn, director of the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum, at 7 p.m. Thursday at Great Lakes Maritime Heritage Center, 500 West Fletcher St., Alpena. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. for this free event, open to the public.

The desolate Lake Superior shoreline between Whitefish Point in Michigan’s Eastern Upper Peninsula and the area of Grand Marais is littered with a multitude of shipwrecks. Some occurred as early as the 1816 wreck of the schooner Invincible, while newer, larger wrecks are deep within the shipping lanes. The 729-foot S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald is an extreme example, lying just 17 miles northwest of Whitefish Point.

In the early years of commercial ship traffic, those mariners who went down within site of land, or were driven ashore, might have had a better chance to survive the experience. The time of year was critical though, as many a crew survived their ship’s demise… just to perish along the barren and frozen coastline.

By 1876, the victims of shipwreck in this region likely had better odds. The burgeoning U.S. Life-Saving Service was in action along the Shipwreck Coast, with the construction of four new, manned stations. Learn about the stations, equipment and “Surfmen” of the Life-Saving Service along Superior’s Shipwreck Coast in this heritage program.