Wrecks and Disasters

Wesley B. Turner is an associate professor of history at Brock
University and author of The War of 1812: The War That Both Sides Won.

These two publications continue the Great Lakes Album series begun by
Vanwell Publishing in 1991.Wrecks and Disasters offers “a memorial to
all those people lost on our inland seas.” The toll seems astonishing
to the modern reader. In the introduction, aptly titled “Dangerous
Waters,” the authors tell us that there were as many shipwrecks on the
Great Lakes in 1883 as were probably suffered by the Spanish treasure
fleets on both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans over a period of
approximately 170 years! The causes of the disasters are dealt with in
chapters entitled “The Lee Shore,” “Running Aground,” “Fires
and Explosions,” “Collisions and Mysterious Disappearances,” and
“Canal and Dockside Mishaps.” A final chapter describes rescues.
Based on these accounts, it would appear that ships and their passengers
were in danger at all times, even beside a dock or in the narrow and
controlled waters of a canal.

Propellers, like earlier volumes, deals with a type of vessel. These
were steam-powered vessels propelled by a screw and built before 1900.
Today “propeller” usually means only the “actual screw propulsion
device on a ship.” These ships first appeared on the Great Lakes in
1841, and their success is well indicated by the fact that only nine
years later there were more than 50 propellers operating on the Lakes.
The many different forms of vessels, and even their passengers and
cargo, can be seen in the book’s numerous illustrations.

The strength of both volumes, as with the previous two books in the
series, continues to be the illustrations, which were taken from many
varied sources, both private and public. Unfortunately, as in Paddle
Wheelers and Schooners, some photos still have captions printed on the
actual picture. Nevertheless, the authors and publisher are to be
commended for continuing a series that provides a most enjoyable
introduction to the maritime history of the Great Lakes.