Steel on the Bottom: Great Lakes Shipwrecks

by Frederick Stonehouse

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.

Genres: Nonfiction, History

215 pages, Paperback

First published April 30, 2006

About the author

Frederick Stonehouse has authored over thirty books on maritime history, many of them focusing on the Great Lakes and contributed to several others. The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald and Great Lakes Lighthouse Tales are regional best sellers. Wreck Ashore, the U.S. Life-Saving Service on the Great Lakes, won a national publishing award and is the predominant work on the subject. Another book, Haunted Lakes, Great Lakes Maritime Ghost Stories, Superstitions and Sea Serpents, has opened an entirely new genre in Great Lakes study. His book, Final Voyage, is the first Great Lakes shipwreck book for children.

He has been a consultant for both the U.S. National Park Service and Parks Canada and has been an "on-air" expert for National Geographic, History Channel and Fox Family, as well as many regional media productions. Awards for contributions to Great Lakes maritime history have been received from Underwater Canada, Our World Underwater, Marquette Maritime Museum and Marquette County Historical Society. He is also the recipient of the 2006 Association For Great Lakes Maritime History Award for Historic Interpretation. The Award is presented annually in recognition of an individual making a major contribution over many years to the interpretation of Great Lakes maritime history in furtherance of the goals of the Association. In addition he was named the Marine Historical Society of Detroit’s “2007 Historian of the Year.” The award is the result of election by past MHSD Historians and recognizes persons who have actively contributed to the study of Great Lakes history. He holds a Master of Arts degree in History from Northern Michigan University, Marquette, Michigan.

Reviews

[Jeffrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sailors on the Great Lakes have and remain hearty folk - at times, also foolhardy. What struck me about this book is how the large freight companies using the large freighters, tugs and barges to haul their goods, and the ship companies themselves would use chickenshit scapegoat tactics to cover their asses when unseaworthy ships were mostly to blame over human error. Typical of large companies, even nowadays.

I have been on Lake Michigan and the few times I've been afloat on this menacing body of water, even in fair weather it'll pucker your ballsack. Michigan and the area around the Great Lakes has always fascinated me with it's rich and sometimes unsavory history. A romantic notion to go down with your ship; I hope I never experience.

I was reading this book on the shitter last week before I took my little bass boat out on Horsetooth reservoir. I dallied getting back to port and the winds came up heavy and I was soaked, waves crashing into Wee on the lee side of the courtesy dock I had her tied to and all I kept thinking was if'n it gets heavier than this I am going to drive her up on the beach, get a towel, and hope the best for the Wee. As it was all happening I kept thinking of this book. Paltry my story in comparison to the events described in this book; truly frightening stuff. Luckily for me and Wee, the wind layed down for a moment, and with the confidence offered by a buddy (Raymond) close by, the wind laid down and I drove Wee right up on her the trailer to safety. :)

This book was borrowed to me by my friend Wilson. He thought I might like it. He was right.

[Were-Owl in Wisconsin In Wisconsin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Three stars for content, but it loses points for egregious quality control problems.

I enjoy the subject matter, and there were a few interesting stories I hadn't heard before - and one or two that I'd just forgotten about. Unfortunately, this was a very frustrating book to read. It is absolutely riddled with speling, grammar, and, syntax errors, more than a few places where a word seems to been omitted, and an excessive use of exclamation points! I've noticed the same issue in every other book I've ready from this author.

There are multiple instances of the footnotes at the end of a chapter continuing on to the next page - appearing under the title for the next chapter. In one case, the text just stops in the middle of the page and continues two pages later - again, after the next chapter title.

The worst part, though, is the photographs. Several of them are missing, leaving only a weird textured background. Many of the ones that are there, are not lined up properly with the outline - like if you make a photocopy without making sure it's lined up properly on the scanner. Some of the pictures are also zoomed in or magnified to such an extent that it's impossible to discern any details.

I don't know if every copy of the book was like this or what, but from a quality control standpoint, it's easily one of the worst books I've ever seen. I find it doubly infuriating because I actually have experience with printing presses, and it's obvious to me that this technically isn't a misprint. These errors had to have been engraved directly onto the plates before they were installed on the press, and somehow, either nobody noticed or cared.

[Victoria Miles · Rating 2 out of 5]

The history of the Great Lakes shipping industry is fascinating to me as someone who moved to the Great Lakes Region as a pre-teen. Stories of the shipwrecks, through tragic, are stories that I like to read about. I picked this book up on a family camping trip one summer, simply because it was about some of the wrecks that have accrued in the Great Lakes. I fully intended to love this book just based solely on the fact that I love learning about these events and about the history of the Great Lakes, because it was not something that I learned in school. While the book covered shipwrecks that I had not heard about, and that was something that I really enjoyed, this book had so many errors grammatically that it was a challenge to read it. My uncle, who also finds shipwrecks on The Lakes to be interesting, could not even get through the first story because of the mistakes (he's also a teacher so that did not help things either). Apart from the grammatical errors, the overall writing style was also very poor. For someone who is a professor you would expect a higher level of writing skills and a stronger voice, or at least that is what I expected. I think the author tried really hard to make these shipwrecks seem interesting by using simpler sentence structures and word choices, but it honestly felt like I was reading a book that a young child had written. The stories were fascinating and tragic and everything that you would expect from reading a book based on shipwrecks, but the writing style and the errors within made this book really unenjoyable to read.

[Jake · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you’ve never been to the Great Lakes, you ought to go sometime. I find Lake Superior especially mesmerizing. A couple of years ago my parents made a trip to the Upper Peninsula for the experience. While there, my dad took an interest in the many shipwrecks that have occurred on the lakes. Indeed, there is an entire museum dedicated to them.

My dad came home with a copy of Steel on the Bottom, and later had me read it. This was a quick read and easily held my attention. My gripe, and reason for a lower rating, is that the book came off as a hurried summary/survey. This isn’t deep history. It’s good history, but feels cursory.

There are many books that take you to the Great Lakes. This one isn’t the best. Still if, like my dad, you take an interest in the subject material, I’d recommend it.

[Richard Dann · Rating 2 out of 5]

Many are aware of the loss of the Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior on 10 November 1975, but few are aware of the plethora of lake steamers that were lost in the preceding years of the 20th Century. This book outlines in basic details some of those mishaps. There is a chapter devoted to each of the disasters that the author has selected to highlight.

This book is not for the serious student of Great Lakes shipping history, but still provides some interesting details of a number of maritime disasters.

Recommended if you are looking to get some basics on Great Lakes shipping history.

[Duane · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book for anyone interested in the history of shipwrecks of the Great Lakes. Filled with interesting photographs, the author does a great job of giving the reader just the right amount of information to make the stories real and interesting. A nice book for anyone who is interested in the subject of shipping and shipwrecks.