Traverse City, Leland – With the summer sun melting the ice sheet on Lake Michigan’s surface the clear water for the first time revealed obscure shipwrecks from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Traverse City, Michigan’s Coast Guard helicopter crew had a good view of the wrecks while it was flying over the Lake on Friday as a part of its routine patrol.
The aircrew captured several photos of the shipwrecks over the shoreline of Lake Michigan and posted six of the images on Sunday on their official Facebook page.
It is very difficult to identify the different shipwrecks from the photographs. However, one of the shipwrecks, James McBride measuring 121 foot that occurred on Oct. 19, 1857 was easy to identify. This shipwreck occurred near the Sleeping Bear point. The Grand Rapids Press released the report about the photos on shipwrecks.
Two other wrecks that the crew identified include Rising Sun that submerged in 1917, and a wooden steamer of 133 feet long to the north of Pyramid Point. The steamer is submerged now around 6 to 12 feet below the water.
Shipwreck Images Generate Interest
The shallow waters of Lake Michigan off the Leelanau Peninsula, located closely to the Leland are the major sites of late 19th and early 20th-century-old shipwrecks. This area lies in between the mainland of South and North Manitou Islands and the Northwestern Lower Peninsula and is known as Manitou Passage.
The U.S Park Service maintains the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. The service officials made an announcement last month that the Jennie & Annie wreckage that lie on the beach halfway in between the South and North Bar lakes can now be seen.
The wreckage of the schooner took place in 1872. Surprisingly wrecks are not always visible, even though, the waters of the Michigan Lakes clear off every summer. It is because certain factors such as waves, wind, beach erosion and variable levels of the lakes affect the visibility of the various fragments of the wreck along the shoreline of the dunes.
