By Dylan Wacht
The shipping industry had a big part in the growth of Michigan and the United States in its early years. The shipping industry started in the early 1800s. Some of the most popular things that were shipped was lumber, grains, coal and iron ore at this time period. During this era the Great Lakes were like a busy highway of ships going to different cities and states. This was a time before roads, highways and semi trucks. The train industry was in its early stages also so trains and ships were the two main ways to move large amounts of products. Lumber would be shipped to different areas and different states for building. Farmers would ship out corn and grain to different states because it could not be grown everywhere. Coal was one of the main products shipped in the 1800s because steamships and trains ran off coal and it heated homes. They needed coal in every state and everyone used the coal. The last main item shipped in this era was iron ore and was also needed in the country for building and making things.
The Great Lakes include Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Superior, Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. The Great Lakes system touches 8 states: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and It also borders Ontario Canada. There are some major cities on the great lakes shores. A few of the bigger cities are Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, Toronto and Buffalo. The St, Lawrence Seaway is how ships go back and forth to the Atlantic Ocean from the great lakes. It starts at the east end of Lake Ontario and flows into the Atlantic Ocean. If ships need to get to the southern states there is a way. The Illinois and Michigan Canal connects the Great Lakes to the Mississippi river which also flows into the Gulf Of Mexico. The Canals and waterways made it possible to ship products to other parts of the country and Canada. The Soo Locks in Sault Ste Marie, Michigan and border Canada. They have a lot to do with the shipping industry because they are located between Lake Superior and Lake Huron on the St, Marys river. The St, Marys river drops 21 feet here this is where the soo locks are. How the Soo Locks work is the ship goes into one of the locks and the gate closes. The ship is locked in now. Next it fills or drains water to bring it to the level of the other side where it is going. Once the levels are the same the other gate opens and lets the ship out.
The earliest ships that were built on the Great Lakes were built in the middle of the 1700s. The shipping industry started in Ontario Canada when one of the first sailing ships was built there. In the article that I learned this from the article said a lot of the first ships were built in Ontario Canada because of the natural barriers posed by the Saint Lawrence river rapids. The British built their own ships in the 1700s as well by the late 1700s the British had 4 big ships on lake Ontario. They built them there because they wanted to travel and assert their influence over the lucrative and growing fur trade. Also some of the earliest ships in the Great Lakes were built from France and England.
In 1785 the Governor General of Canada gave permission to a company for private construction to build commercial vessels on the Great Lakes. Many ships were built during this time when he gave permission to build the ships. There was a ship that was 40 tons, its name was called Athabasca and it was built for a company that was called North West At Pointe Aux Pins above Sault Ste Marie. There was another ship that weighed 75 tons and its name was Sloop Otter. The building of the ship was completed in 1793. Unlike the British and the French built the first ships the Navy built their own ships for the great Lakes. During the end of the 1700s and the early 1800s Canada passed an act that would have more vessels that would be built on the Great Lakes.
The vessels that Canada would build would be for trading products with Native Americans. This would go on through the whole war that started in 1812 and this would happen for a while and the Native Americans would trade the Canadians for fur trade for the ships. Also during the war of 1812 there was a boating and ship program to build ships and boats for the Great Lakes due to the demand of needing ships and boats to do the war. When they would build the ships in the 1800s they would build them differently by the bottom of the ship it would be more wide and flat. The bottom would be flat because this would help to get the ship to get into shallow waters due to the war and needing to get into different areas of the great lakes. The ships were also invariably fitted with center boards to improve their sailing qualities. The ships had straight sides and like box forms when they built the ships and they resembled canal boats and earlier coastal packets.
The ships were the models for the early 20th century bulk freighters. The distinctive canallers depicted by their shapes and their features which conformed to those of the locks themselves. The first Welland Canal was completed in 1832 had locks 100 feet long and 16 feet wide. The second locks opened in 1845 and were 150 feet long and 26 feet wide. In the early 1860s there were reportedly 750 Canals on the Great Lakes out of a total of nearly 1,300 sailing crafts. Some of the more known ships that have come out of the shipping industry and are a part of the Great Lakes shipping history are the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, MV Paul R, Tregurtha and James, R, Barker. All of these ships and many many more are a part of history and have built the great lakes to what they are today.
There have been many shipwrecks on all of the Great Lakes. The estimates range from 6,000 to 8,000. There were so many shipwrecks because the lakes don’t have too many safe natural harbors for protection. Another reason is because they did not have the best navigation system and would drift into shallow waters some times which would make the ships bottoms rip open. They used lighthouses for part of the navigation system but during bad storms the ships would not be able to see the lighthouses and lose their sight and drift of course. A good portion of ship wrecks happened in Lake Superior which is in northern Michigan. Lake superior is the largest of the Great Lakes and its weather is the most changeable. The fast change in conditions produces substantial storms with high winds, and waves as high as 35 feet, making it unsafe for the ships. The last major shipwreck on the great lakes was the SS Edmund Fitzgerald. This was the most famous shipwreck that I know of. It was a huge ship that began running in the Great Lakes on June 7th 1958 and had a nickname of “Big Fitz.” he ship carried iron ore for 17 years and went all over the Midwest. It would often travel from Detroit to the Soo Locks and pick up and drop off iron ore. One day the crew went out on a bad stormy day it was November 9th 1975. The crew had a load of iron to take; they were in Lake superior when a huge storm was coming in from the west to the east. The ship was out at the Burlington Northern Railroad Doc and the ship was moving towards another harbor but they were aware of a storm moving through the area but they tried to stay by land to be protected by the highland. The storm got out of hand and the wind picked up bad and the waves got big and the storm got really bad. They were planning on going into shelter and dropping their anchor but it was too late. They were on the radio with the other ships because there was a ship following them but it was too late, as the ship lost radio contact, broke up, and sank to the lake bottom, killing all 29 on board. It was a big deal that this ship went down into the lake because the ship would travel the lakes and had a big job transporting products and people knew all of this over the state of Michigan.
s of today the Great lakes are still being used for shipping products. Shipping now is different from when it was done in the olden days like Canada has the most products shipped which is 25 percent and the USA only has 7 percent of its products shipped now on the Great Lakes. What they ship now in the great lakes is limestone, grain, coal, sand, cement and other products.
Bibliography
Minnesota’s Lake Superior Shipwrecks
Patrick Labadie is the Author, the title of the article is History And Development Of The Great Lakes WaterCraft,The Location of Minnesota’s Historical society is 345 W. Kellogg Blvd. St. Paul MN 55102
Great Lakes, Mighty Rivers
Kennteth E. is the Author, the title of the article is Great Lakes Mighty Rivers, the Location of the museum that is called on the water that wrote the article is in Washington D.C and is Located on 14th ST.on Construction Ave., NW Washington D.C
How The Locks Work At Sault Ste Marie Michigan
Vivian Wood is the Author, the title of the article is How The Locks Work At Sault Ste Marie Michigan the Company’s name is Exploring The North, the Location of the Writing company is Dishaw Dr, Iron Mountain, MI 49801
The Fateful Journey
Sean Ley is the Author of this article, the title of the article is The Fateful Journey, The company name is called the Great Lakes Shipwrecks Museum, the Location of the Writing Company is 400 W. Portage Ave, Sault Ste Marie MI 49783
Folk Songs Preserve Memories Of Great Lakes Shipwrecks
Eric Freedman Is the Author and the article was published April 2, 2021, this article is named Folk Songs Preserve Memories Of Great Lakes Shipwrecks, this article was written by a Michigan State Professor and the website is called msu.edu, the location of the website is 250 Administration Building 48824-1046
Facts And Figures About The Great Lakes
On this article there is no author that I could not find and it said the website is a government website so I think there is a lot of people that added information to this article, this article was written by United States Environmental Protection Agency, the Location of the website is part of Washington and also part of the capital of Michigan in Lansing
