Customer Reviews

Lake Superior Shipwrecks : Complete Reference to Maritime Accidents and Disasters

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Dr. Wolff taught history at the University of Minnesota-Duluth and was the leading authority on Lake Superior shipwrecks. His account of the Fitzgerald wreck in this book might attract more casual readers, but it's his exhaustive history of maritime disaster large and small throughout the lake's history that makes this a gripping reference work. Wonderful illustrations, rare photographs and Dr. Wolff's scholarly but dramatic writing style makes this one of my favorite books. I was fortunate to see his slide presentation lecture on the lake's wrecks when I was a kid, it was absolutely spellbinding and gave me a lifelong interest in the subject. Dr. Wolff had a love for these stories and the terrifying mysteries of Lake Superior that is evident in every page of this book. His lecture on the subject is available on tape, somewhere, and would be worth every penny. It's a shame he taught during a less media-saturated age, his lectures on Minnesota history at UMD were worth the price of tuition, I've been told.

Wolff's book is a chronological documentary and listing of every shipping accident and disaster known to have happened on Lake Superior between 1816 and 1989. [Since then, the advent of both precise, digital navigation technology and better storm forecasting by the National Weather Service have probably made major disasters like the Edmund Fitzgerald a thing of the past, the possible exceptions still being sabotage or devastating mechanical malfunction.] Wolff's book is, as advertised, a "complete reference," with roughly 12 pages of thorough Fitzgerald event coverage dwarfed by the remaining 270 pages of material. Yes, the cold, dark waters of Superior have entombed many a fine vessel before 1975! The reading got rather dry at times, since the writer takes a rather formulaic approach to documenting each incident. This didn't bother me enough to quit reading; and in a way such consistency does aid in looking for specific details common to more than one shipping accident. But I recommend that you not buy this book unless you are: 1) Very interested in the maritime history of Lake Superior or shipwrecks in general, or 2) Seeking well-organized decriptive information on Superior shipping disasters other than the Fitzgerald (about which so much has been written in other forums). If either, then this book is very well worth the cost.