Don’t let the serene waters fool you. The fickle lakes have swallowed about 5,000 ships in Michigan’s history. Enough to fill a Smithsonian or two.
But one excavation of a shipwreck is the focus of the Michigan Historical Museum’s “Schooner in the Sand: Unlocking the Secrets of a Great Lakes Shipwreck” exhibit.
“There are all kinds of storms every year,”exhibit designer Steve Ostrander said. “What kind of storm did it take to sink the Edmund Fitzgerald? A big storm. So what would it take to sink this ship? Not as big of a storm, but a pretty big storm.”
Ostrander said hurricane force winds of 60 mph or more would have been enough to wreck the 75-foot-long ship, found in 1990 by 10-year-old David Head in the Upper Peninsula’s Millecoquins River.
“He saw this wood sticking out of the sand in the water and he thought that there was something to it and that it looked like a ship or a boat,” Ostrander said. “He took a closer look and sure enough, it did appear to be a shipwreck.”
The exhibit opened in the museum, 717 W. Allegan St. in Lansing, on Jan. 12 and will continue until Aug. 18.
It focuses on the archaeological excavations done by East Carolina University and many artifacts from the ship also are on display.
Ostrander said the ship, which most likely wrecked during the late 1830s or 1840s, was originally discovered by a map surveyor in the area.
“There was work done to it, but it was work done of a destructive kind,” he said. “The shipwreck had been scavenged probably by fishermen and Native Americans because at that time in the late 1830s, it was very much a wilderness frontier and things like nails, screws, bolts and lumber were hard to come by, so anybody that had gone through that area went down and scavenged it.”
But many artifacts were still salvaged from the wreckage, such as Chinese tea, wine and champagne from France, and English ceramics and dishes.
The hands-on exhibit also features a simulation of trying to tie a knot while being rocked back and forth on a ship and miniature demonstrations of how barrels are more effective than boxes for storage in the rounded hull of a ship.
East Lansing resident Don Gaff and his son Henry, 2, played with the wooden ships during their visit to the exhibit.
“We’ve been here a few other times and it’s a fantastic museum,” he said. “It’s very interesting, and he’s just having fun.”
Others enjoyed the newer look of the museum, which switched locations from North Capitol Avenue. in Lansing in 1989. “I can’t believe how different things look just from the last time we were here,” said Lansing resident Pat Groesser. “It’s really nice.”
