Sad news from the Apostles

In a story on the Duluth News-Tribune website, news comes from Bayfield of a woman found dead floating in Lake Superior Wednesday afternoon. The victim was identified as Gildi Whiteside, age 67, from Bayfield.


Apparently this has been a busy season in the Bayfield area for lake-related incidents. A kayaker drowned off of Sand Island this summer. An 18-year-old from Red Cliff fell off the bluffs and drowned.

In one bit of positive news, there was a dramatic rescue off the Apostles. Just a few weeks ago, an 83-year-old passenger experienced heart problems aboard the Great Lakes' longest boat, the Paul Tregurtha. This would have been disastrous decades ago, when a boat was far from shore and medical help was impossible. This gentleman was airlifted by helicopter to the hospital...fortunately surviving the experience.

Ghosts and goners at Split Rock Lighthouse

This year is the big centennial of Split Rock Lighthouse, on Minnesota's North Shore of Lake Superior. A lot happened at Split Rock in 1910...including the first keeper fatalities.

100 years ago this month, Roy C. Gill, 2nd assistant keeper, and Edward F. Sexton, 1st assistant keeper, took off in a small boat for Beaver Bay to get the mail. This was 15 years before the North Shore highway was in place, and the only routes to civilization were by boat or by foot. Although the keeper warned against it, Gill and Sexton put up a small sail on their boat.

The boat was found later, but no bodies.

The story would end there as just another Lake Superior tragedy, if it weren't for an eerie ghost story from 1990. As William Mayo and Kate Barthel relate in their book Mysterious North Shore, the ghosts of Gill and Sexton were seen walking up from the historic boat landing.

Castle Danger-ous

Photo from Bob King, Duluth News Tribune

Castle Danger. The name alone sounds dangerously romantic. It's a mysterious film noir location. How did a little North Shore town get that name? Is it truly dangerous? Two events, separated by exactly 100 years, point out the risks and the consequences.

Castle Danger was in the Duluth news today because a 30-foot cabin cruiser ran aground on a reef on Sunday. They were able to call for help. All four people aboard were rescued by the Minnesota DNR.

The news was much worse exactly 100 years ago in Castle Danger. On September 18, 1910, four people anchored their launch and rowed their dinghy to shore. A storm came up and the four men rowed back to the launch. Three of the four men had made it back on to the launch. The launch capsized and the three men aboard it all drowned. The only survivor was the man still in the rowboat, who barely made it back to shore himself.

The bodies of Captain Roy Sullivan and John Strand were found quickly. One body, that of Ingvold Aronsen, was found by two boys a month later on the South Shore.

A century later, it's the same Lake Superior, and its basic dangers remain the same. But times have changed.

100 years ago, you couldn't use your cellphone or marine radio to call for help. There wasn't a highway or a resort from which people could watch out for threatened ships or launch their rescue boat.

Now Castle Danger has the Rustic Inn and Grand Superior Lodge and Gooseberry Cabins. Thanks to modern technology and the DNR rescue squad, Castle Danger isn't quite as Danger-ous anymore.

More trouble on the trail

After warning readers yesterday about an unnamed hypabyssmal intrusion on the Superior Hiking Trail, I would be remiss not to warn you about trees that eat hikers. Thanks to long-time blog follower Ovidia for this photo. Although it's not known where the picture was taken, the phenomenon of trees eating hiking signs is not a one-time occurrence.



Check out these other examples.

You have to be careful out there!

A North Shore mother looks to sea

The newspapers only knew her as “Mrs. Olson” of Two Harbors. Though her name may have been common, her suffering at the hands of Lake Superior was poignant and rare.

Her men were fishermen, and even before coming to the United States she had lost her husband, drowned off the coast of Sweden. One of her sons, John had drowned April 1910 in Grand Marais on his way to Isle Royale.

Now, in April 1911 her other son, Otto, was off to Isle Royale in the same boat. And there was no word from him; he was missing off the North Shore.



In the 1900s and early 1910s on the North Shore, information only traveled as fast as the boat, dogsled or runner bearing the letter. Telephone lines weren't in yet between Duluth, Two Harbors and Grand Marais. The Booth Line’s steamer Easton was the main link North Shore communities had with each other and with the world. Imagine Mrs. Olson waiting for news of her son.

One can only imagine Mrs. Olson’s dread as days stretched into weeks without word. Radios were only recently introduced to Lake Superior’s larger ships, and smaller boats seldom had them. The steamer Easton had made two of its regular trips between Duluth and Isle Royale to collect the fish from the dozens of Island fishermen, and had seen no sign of the Olson party.

On April 14, 1911 the Duluth News-Tribune ran the headline “FISHERMEN ARE PROBABLY LOST ON NORTHSHORE.” The article explains that since the time the party left Grand Marais, “a strong wind has been blowing almost continuously from the northeast, and is considered by old sailors here more than probable that the small launch has been swamped and all aboard perished.”

But April 14 was also the day the Easton returned to Two Harbors from Isle Royale on its next trip, with news and mail from the island in addition to its load of fish.

The Easton carried a letter written a few days before by her son Otto. After leaving Grand Marais, the crew had stopped at Grand Portage and then reached the Susie Islands. The wind was so strong that they dared not make the fifteen-mile crossing to Isle Royale. They had “held” at Susie Island for four nights, waiting for the wind to drop.

Mrs. Olson: wife and mother of men who fish.

Although Mrs. Olson was no doubt very happy that day, I wish a much MUCH happier Mother's Day to all this year!