The Great Lakes were America’s first superhighway before railroad lines and roads arrived in the late nineteenth century. This book tells the story of the ships and boats on which the United States, barely decades old, moved to the country’s middle and beyond, established a robust industrial base, and became a world power, despite enduring a bloody Civil War. The “five sisters,” as the Great Lakes came to be called, would connect America’s far-reaching regions in the century ahead, carrying streams of Irish, German, and Scandinavian settlers to new lives, as the young nation expanded west. Initially, schooner fleets delivered passengers and goods to settlements along the lakes, including Chicago, Milwaukee, and Green Bay, and returned east with grain, lumber, and iron ore. Steam-driven vessels, including the lavish “palace” passenger steamers, followed, along with those specially designed to carry coal, grain, and iron ore. The era also produced a flourishing shipbuilding industry and saw recreational boating advance. In text and photographs, this book tells the story of a bygone era, of mariners and Mackinaw Boats, schooners and steamboats, all helping to advance the young nation westward.

Take a trip on the Great Lakes with Sweetwater Sailors. This entertaining, historical and factual book brings you up close and personal with Great Lakes Merchant Mariners, both men and women, including the only American woman Captain of a large Great Lakes ore carrier. You'll have a first person perspective on the jobs they perform and what makes them continue working in a potentially dangerous profession, which keeps them away from home most of the year. Great Lakes merchant sailors provided photographs of their own experiences and collaborated with the author, Bob Ojala by sharing many interesting and funny stories of their years on the Great Lakes. If you're interested in the history of the Great Lakes, ships of all kinds, and women in atypical careers, will enjoy this book. The author spent four years in the U.S. Coast Guard, 17 years as a ship Surveyor with the American Bureau of Shipping, nearly 9 years with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and has managed in his own business as a marine consultant for 30 years. Bob is still active in the marine industry. His father was a Merchant Mariner for 32 years, giving Bob the interest in the Maritime Industry, his hundreds of contacts with sailors, and his respect for their profession.

A personal account of forty years of sailing upon Lake Superior, this small volume develops in the reader a rich appreciation of the surrounding land, history and people of the "unsalted sea." The author focuses on several favorite anchorages and at each reawakens the spirits of people who preceded her on the shores or islands, seeking shelter, sustenance, or wealth. Prehistoric peoples pit Isle Royale as they mine native copper; Ojibway campfires flicker in the woods; French voyageurs steal past on their way to fur trading posts. But there are also luxury yachts riding anchor in safe harbors, ore boats looming out of the fog, fierce storms and tragic shipwrecks. All contribute to the lore of the great lake and make this book good reading for sailor and landlubber alike.

To the Anishinaabe-Ojibwa people it was a gathering place, a sacred burial ground, and the home of the Great Spirit Gitchie Manitou. Throughout the 1600s French voyageurs, explorers, missionaries, and fur traders arrived at Mackinac Island. Its strategic location in the straits between Michigan’s Upper and Lower Peninsulas made it a military outpost the British and Americans found worth fighting for through the War of 1812. By the late 1800s Mackinac was a destination for city dwellers seeking fresh air, scenic beauty, recreation, and amusements. Today, passenger ferries transport visitors to the car-free island, where getting around is by foot, horse-drawn carriage, or bicycle, the air is still clean, and the scenery spectacular. Most of Mackinac is a state park, fringed with grand Victorian cottages and the whitewashed fort overlooking the compact village of pastel-colored hotels and shops (including the famous fudge makers). 100 Things to Do on Mackinac Island Before You Die helps you make the best of a day trip and reveals dozens of reasons to spend a night—or longer—at this captivating spot.

The sea and Great Lakes have inspired American authors from colonial times to the present to produce enduring literary works. This reference is a comprehensive survey of American sea literature. The scope of the encyclopedia ranges from the earliest printed matter produced in the colonies to contemporary experiments in published prose, poetry, and drama. The book also acknowledges how literature gives rise to adaptations and resonances in music and film and includes coverage of nonliterary topics that have nonetheless shaped American literature of the sea and Great Lakes. The alphabetical arrangement of the reference facilitates access to facts about major literary works, characters, authors, themes, vessels, places, and ideas that are central to American sea literature. Each of the several hundred entries is written by an expert contributor and many provide bibliographical information. While the encyclopedia includes entries for white male canonical writers such as Herman Melville and Jack London, it also gives considerable attention to women at sea and to ethnically diverse authors, works, and themes. The volume concludes with a chronology and a list of works for further reading.

“Through Woods on Water” is a novel, an historic fiction: the life of Étienne Brûlé “as it might have been.” Set in the first decades of the 17th century, it is a coming of age story, a clash of cultures, a saga of exploration and adventure that rebounds between the enclosed corridors and courtyards of Paris, across the open, storm-tossed Atlantic, to the wilderness waterways of the vast Canadian forest. Savignon and Étienne, Wendat and French, are in their mid teens when they meet on the shores of the broad St Lawrence River, brought there by the chalk-faced shaman Ostemoy and the determined navigator Champlain. Inspired by the Wendat heroes Iouskeha and Tawiscaron, who gave shape and texture to the world of the Wendat, the two form an unlikely lifetime bond symbolized by the half turtle Oki or talisman that each wears about his neck. Their connection intensifies through decades of wandering, discovery, torture and adventure, until it concludes with a final confrontation by the Sweetwater Sea. Only then are the halves of the Turtle Oki fused once more.

The first ever guide to green fun in the Mitten state