Thunder Bay and the shipwreck sanctuary

Alpena sits at the head of Thunder Bay, a wide arm of Lake Huron, and the water just offshore holds one of the most remarkable underwater treasures in the country. So many ships came to grief here in storms and fog over the years that sailors named this stretch of coast Shipwreck Alley. Today those wrecks are protected as the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary, which when it was created in 2000 was the first national marine sanctuary in the Great Lakes, and the first in fresh water rather than salt. It remains the only one in Michigan.

Within its boundaries lie close to a hundred known shipwrecks, part of an estimated two hundred lost in these waters over the years. Because Lake Huron runs so cold and clear, many of them are astonishingly well preserved, looking much as they did the day they went down. They range from old wooden schooners to long steel steamers, a museum of Great Lakes history resting on the lake bottom.

You don’t have to be a scuba diver to see them. Some lie in water shallow enough for a snorkeler, others can be viewed from a glass-bottom tour boat, and the whole story is told at the Great Lakes Maritime Heritage Center, the sanctuary’s free museum on the Thunder Bay River in downtown Alpena. You can plan a visit at thunderbay.noaa.gov.