The lighthouse at Lake Superior's Shipwreck Coast

At the wild northern tip of the U.P., Lake Superior funnels ships into the narrow entrance of Whitefish Bay. Here stands Lake Superior’s oldest operating lighthouse, along with a museum that remembers the ships and crews lost nearby.

This stretch is part of Lake Superior’s “Shipwreck Coast.” More than 200 ships have wrecked in the waters around Whitefish Point. They fell victim to Superior’s sudden, violent storms and the bottleneck of traffic squeezing through the bay. A lighthouse has stood here since 1849. The present tower entered service in 1861, and the light remains active today. It is the oldest operating lighthouse on Lake Superior.

Today the point is home to the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum, one of the most moving destinations in the state. Its galleries tell the stories of the sailors and ships lost to Superior’s depths, with artifacts, models, and recovered relics. The centerpiece is the bronze bell of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald. The famous freighter vanished with all 29 hands in a November 1975 storm, just 17 miles from this very point. Divers recovered the 200-pound bell in 1995 at the request of the crew’s families. It now hangs in the museum as a memorial. At the annual November ceremony it is rung 30 times — once for each of the 29 lost crew, and a final time for all the other sailors the Great Lakes have claimed. It is the human heart of the place.

You can also climb through the restored 1861 lightkeeper’s quarters. A boardwalk leads out to the Lake Superior shore, where you can scan for the big freighters that still pass close by. For more on the point itself and the county it anchors, see Whitefish Point and the Edmund Fitzgerald.