I just finished reading So Terrible a Storm by Curt Brown. This November 27, 1905 storm on Lake Superior sank the Madeira off of Split Rock and inspired the building of Split Rock lighthouse. Many other ships sank or were damaged severely and the loss of life was horrific. The ship Mataafa ran into the canals in Duluth and 9 men die while the residents onshore were only 700 yards from the ship but unable to do anything in the tremendous surf to rescue the surviving sailors until the next day.
This book fascinated me because, as a child, I used to play on the remains of one of these shipwrecks, the Amboy, located on the North Shore beach where my father grew up. The fishermen of Thomasville (no longer in existence) rescued the sailors from the Amboy and also the Spencer. I believe those rescuers were my great-grandparents who helped found Thomasville. Later, in 1935, my grandfather and great Uncle also drowned on Lake Superior when a sudden Nor'easter came up while they were out picking fishing nets. My father was only 2 years old at the time.
For anyone interested in the North Shore of Lake Superior, the book offers lots of photos, some of Duluth, MN, in the late 1800s and early 1900s as well a lot of history of the area and the development of the shipping industry on the Great Lakes.
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