Painting by Tim Olsen / Lake Superior Maritime Collections, University of Wisconsin-Superior
Sailing Ships on Lake Superior: The Early History
Lake Superior, like all the Great Lakes, had its share of wooden-hulled, tall-masted ships sailing its sweet waters, even before creation of the first modern locks at Sault Ste. Marie in 1855 allowed a freer flow of maritime traffic between the lakes.
Early maritime travel on Lake Superior depended on canoes of varying sizes, even after the fur trade discovered the bounty of the North Woods. The largest of these were the Montreal canoes, which could reach 35 to 40 feet in length.
In 1840, the schooner Algonquin was taken around the rapids at St. Marys into Lake Superior, where it spent its life until it was abandoned in Superior in 1865, according to Pride of the Inland Seas by Bill Beck and C. Patrick Labadie.
The first vessel with a deck built on Lake Superior, according to Shipwrecks of Isle Royale National Park by Daniel J. Lenihan, was a 25-ton ship built in 1735 by Sieur de la Ronde, perhaps the earliest actual copper miner in the region. The 75-ton sloop Otter was constructed at Point au Pins for use by the North West Company for the fur trade.
Unlike other Great Lakes, Lake Superior presents difficulties for sailed – and other – vessels.
“Because it lies on an east-west access, the waves can grow larger than they are on the other lakes,” says maritime historian Patrick Labadie, former head of the Lake Superior Maritime Visitor Center in Duluth and now working with Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary in Alpena, Michigan.
Added to the challenges of wind and wave, he says, “there are fewer shelters and fewer harbors (on Lake Superior).”
Lake Superior’s major maritime commerce would grow with the advent of steel-hulled vessels.
“The steel craft began to dominate in the later 1890s,” Patrick says. “The last wooden ships would have been built in 1905. In the end, there were fewer sailing craft used for Lake Superior. The trades peaked later on Lake Superior than on the lower lakes.”
The financial panic of 1857 removed many sailing vessels from commercial trade … at least under their own power. “There were almost 2,000 sailing craft on the Great Lakes when the panic struck,” Patrick says. “A very large number were abandoned or cut down to be towed as barges.”
Towed by steam-powered ships, the sailing vessels turned barges could triple or quadruple the cargo capacity for a single trip.
The U.S. economy didn’t really recover until the Civil War (1861-1865), but sailing vessels never returned as major maritime movers, except for a brief period after the 1871 great fire in Chicago. It created such a demand for northern lumber that they were called briefly back into service.
The tall ships entering Lake Superior for the 2010 festival do recall the thriving era of sailing vessels on the Great Lakes, Patrick says.
“The Bounty is not unlike the vessels in the British Navy or the Provincial Marine Service on the Great Lakes. A ship sunk in 1780 on Lake Ontario and recently discovered in 2008 is similar to the Bounty, he says. The Pride of Baltimore II and the Brig Niagara harken to the War of 1812. “Pride II is very typical of the craft that served on the lakes,” he says, while the Denis Sullivan is “typical of schooners from the 1870s after the Civil War period.
“Amistad is a really good example of the 1830s and 1840s. After building of the Welland Canal in 1829, ships like Amistad transported (cargo) to the upper Great Lakes,” he says. Not to Lake Superior, however, since the locks were not yet in place.
The main joy of watching – and if you are so lucky, riding – on these tall-masted sailing ships, however, does not lie in the past but in the present.
It is, says Patrick, a ride unlike the muscular motion of any engine-powered vessel.
“It’s almost symphonic, the way a sailing ship works with nature around it. Instead of overcoming nature, you’re working with the elements. It’s just such a surreal experience. It’s just magic.”