An 8,800-pound, or 4.4-ton, anchor from the Nordmeer returned to Alpena on Monday, after spending the last nearly 40 years in Tom and Carolyn Scott’s yard, in Milan, south of Ann Arbor.

Scott got the anchor as a surprise wedding gift to her husband, Tom. They married in March of 1983.

“He had a sense a humor,” Carolyn said of her late husband, who passed away three years ago. “I surprised him with it. For all these years, it’s been a special reminder for us.”

She said the anchor was propped up against a tree in their country yard, visible from the road. People would stop and take pictures with it, and they decorated it for the holidays. Scott even had a plaque by the anchor explaining that it was from the Nordmeer.

News Photo by Darby Hinkley From left, George Boden, owner of George’s Towning, and an associate, work to unload the 4.4-ton anchor in the back lot of the Great Lakes Maritime Heritage Center in Alpena.

“That was our baby — the big anchor,” Scott said.

Her husband was a pharmacist, so there’s no obvious reason why he would want a giant anchor, but “he had a little sailboat, and we were out on the water a lot,” Scott said.

Scott said she has to move, so she wanted to make sure the anchor went back to Alpena for many people to admire.

“I’m glad the anchor has found its way home again,” Scott said of the anchor returning to Alpena.

The Nordmeer is one of the shipwrecks in Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary.

News Photo by Darby Hinkley The hulking Nordmeer anchor rides in on the bed of a tow truck, with the NOAA sign in the background.

“The ship ran aground in November 1966,” said Wayne Lusardi, State of Michigan maritime archaeologist with the Department of Natural Resources.

He said at that time, divers were legally able to salvage that shipwreck. So, that’s how parts of the ship and artifacts from the ship were obtained.

“It’s such an incredibly generous donation, and we’re excited to have it coming here,” Lusardi said on Monday before the anchor showed up on a flatbed tow truck driven by George Boden, owner of George’s Towing in Alpena. “We have a large artifact collection of materials from the Nordmeer … I think we’ve got close to 1,000 artifacts that came from the Nordmeer, but this will definitely be the biggest and the heaviest.”

Lusardi said it will be stored behind one of the outbuildings behind the Great Lakes Maritime Heritage Center for now, but in the spring it will be relocated to a prominent area in the front that people will see as soon as they approach the museum.

“The entire front of the building is, sort of, getting a facelift, and all of this parking area is going to be repaved,” Lusardi said. “So, we’ll put a platform out in front where we can mount the anchor. It’ll be the first thing you see when you come up to the sanctuary property.”