Lake Erie Stories: Struggle and Survival on a Freshwater Ocean.

John Abbott is a professor of history at Laurentian University’s Algoma University College. He is the co-author of The Border at Sault Ste Marie and The History of Fort St. Joseph.

While none of these accounts lifts any particular theme or incident out of the historical record for the first time, and all have their places in easily accessible sources, Chad Fraser’s collection is worth reading for the skill with which he has researched his topics, organized their presentation, and written his essays.

He begins by exploring the role Lake Erie played in expanding and protecting the French empire in North America and follows that by explaining the part played by Perry and his fleet in neutralizing any initiatives the British may have been planning in the Ohio country during the War of 1812. Chapters 3 and 4 also focus on stormy times in Canadian-American relations, as he presents in some detail the context of and the circumstances surrounding the battle of Pelee Island after the failure of the 1837 Rebellion in Upper Canada, and the animosity generated in Anglo-American relations by Confederate operations on Johnson’s Island toward the end of the American Civil War. His choices of marine disasters to illustrate the risks of navigating the shallow, shoal-ridden reaches of the lake in late autumn gales are particularly apt. There was the grossly overloaded Atlantic T-boned by the freighter Ogdensburg the night of August 19, 1852, when the misjudgment of both captains cost some 200 to 300 immigrants their lives. Two years later, in the autumn of 1854, Abigail Becker and her children saved the crew of the Conductor from death by drowning or freezing on Long Point. The story of the Clarion’s end in fire and storm in July 1881 is followed by the sinking of the whaleback James B. Colgate in the great Black Friday storm of October 20, 1916. Chapters on lighthouses and their keepers and on rum-running complete the collection. Fraser has made the appropriate decision to tell a few stories and tell them well, with the contexts clearly explained.