The 100 Best Great Lakes Shipwrecks

Lakes Ontario, Erie and Huron, 51 dramatic and exciting shipwreck tales, 75 color and 49 b&w photos, archival and underwater, 284 pages. Also: Deep Wrecks.

Lakes Michigan and Superior, 49 dramatic and exciting shipewrecks tales, 75 color and 57 b&w photos, archival and underwater, 284 pages. Also: The Most Hunted Wrecks.

Containing almost a fifth of the world's fresh water, the Great Lakes system of Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario in North America are vast inland expanses, and subject to the same hazards for shipping more commonly found on the high seas. Since the seventeenth century, when the first wooden vessels of colonists and adventurers set a course across them, the lakes have claimed many ships as well as the lives of those unfortunates aboard them. Shipwrecks of the Great Lakes narrates the tales of over a hundred of them. From the dramatic stories of the many ships that have foundered with all hands in the great storms that can sweep across the lakes, to the tales of vessels like the Gunilda, lost because her wealthy master refused to pay a few dollars for a pilot, this book is packed with the fascinating narratives of Great Lakes disasters. Including photographs of the boats it is also a document of change and progress, showing how the ships have been developed over the centuries as well as the industrial cities and towns that have grown from the wealth brought by the shipping lanes of the lakes. From the griffon, which went down without a trace in 1679, to the more recent disaster of the Edmund Fitzgerald, which was ripped apart and sank with all twenty-nine lives onboard lost, Shipwrecks of the Great Lakes includes tales of courage and tragedy, stupidity and heroism. Inside find: The tales of over a hundred of the most famous shipwrecks on North America's Great Lakes, including the Edmund Fitzgerald, Daniel J. Morrell, Eastland, and many more. Fully illustrated with archival photography. Chronological listing of wrecks. Dramatic stories of the ships' last moments - the tragedies, courage, and the miraculous rescues.

When you think of a shipwreck, what image springs to mind? A tall sailing ship on the rocks, or perhaps the sinking Titanic surrounded by lifeboats? Historian Richard M. Jones has put together 50 stories of lost ships throughout history that are among the most important, infamous and in some cases tragic ships in the whole of history. When did two liners collide and lead to one of the greatest rescues in history? How did a Scotsman become an American hero against his own country? Which warship sank with gold bullion on board during the Second World War? This book tells the story of these fascinating cases plus many more, explores the largest shipwrecks, the treasure wrecks and the ones that are talked about still as the most famous. Starting at the tiny island of Alderney in 1592, we take a journey through history, through the First and Second World Wars, into the age of the passenger ferry and finally to the modern day migrant issues in the Mediterranean Sea. Never before have these fifty wrecks come together in a book that really brings home to the reader just how many lost vessels there are, how deadly many can be and what this teaches us today about our own history.

It is best for the reader to be prepared at this point - because the tales contained here are true and have been reconstructed in terrifying reality. With only occasional dialogue being synthesized for color, every fact has been checked and cross-checked for truth. In every case the greatest pains were taken to insure that when the reader does visit the locations of these stories, his view will be factual."--Pub. desc.

After ten years of lighthouse books, children's books and even a cookbook, noted Great Lakes historian Frederick Stonehouse has gone back to his roots with this excellent new shipwreck book. This book is sure to please both the Great Lakes history and shipwreck buff.