The Wreck of the Stranger - Lake Superior Magazine
Home The Lake Maritime The Stranger
by Michael J. Glaeser December 1, 2003
× Expand Paul Sundberg Tettegouche State Park waves “The missing anchor proved to be terribly important.” – Julius F. Wolff Jr.
Carl Rasmussen looked up through the canopy of sun-bleached sails and inhaled the incredibly frigid December lake air.
The crisp morning breeze burned his face and sparked his senses. He took another deep breath, this time tilting his head back and closing his eyes. The motion of the Big Lake reminded him of the bottomless fjords of home where he had traveled during the winter shipping seasons. Now he was here, half a world away, living a new life on the north shore of Minnesota.
The sails cracked, awakening him from his winter daydream ­– one of the last he would ever enjoy. He came back to the reality of his work as a deck hand on the clipper trading schooner Stranger as she carried a load of supplies from Duluth to Grand Marais.
The foresail boom rattled in the cutting northwest wind, and the hull groaned as the vessel cut through the deep blue water. Carl surveyed the icy horizon and saw the shadows of the vast and dense forests on the western shore of Lake Superior. His soaring ambitions of youth, the hopes of a successful logging career and the quest to craft his own life had summoned him to these endless timber-rich lands.
As he had labored in the bowels of a fishing ship in Norway, it was quite clear that he would never realize his potential or quench his thirst for challenge. He knew that destiny and adventure resided far away. It now seemed like a lifetime since he had left his homeland for this New Land.
Carl recalled his arrival in Minnesota. Lake Superior had looked like another ocean to him and the towering Norway and Scotch pines seemed to touch the heavens. He remembered the endless days spent chopping hundreds of trees to fuel the rising timber industry. Some of the timber cut with his own hands had been sent to the shipping yards in Superior, Wisconsin. In fact, Stranger had been constructed in Superior, and he believed that his trees had been used to build her. The winds grew stronger; the vessel rocked beneath him. He felt proud of her construction.
Again he was transported back into the woods – the maddening swarms of mosquitoes, the incessant and exhausting cutting of the trees and the aching in his legs and arms that made movement difficult ­– much like the difficulty now of gaining his balance on the heaving deck. Yet he knew that his labors in the forest and the frigid lake winds in his face forged his character. Idleness and doubt were thieves; he would not be robbed of any experience that brought him such insight.
Carl knew the schooner should soon head into the west bay of Grand Marais, and shortly Captain Clark called out the proper orders to ready the vessel for docking. Hearing these commands, Carl felt an enormous weight lifted from him – an odd and uncomfortable feeling haunted the small crew this voyage. Perhaps it was because they sailed so late in the season. Perhaps it was because they sailed without an anchor; theirs had been lost. Or perhaps it was that inexplicable instinct that a sailor acquires when accustomed to the sea.
Yet Lake Superior was unknown to all who sailed it. The disrespectful and the bold who boasted they knew it well found themselves telling few stories and meeting the lake’s dark, still depths.
Winds began to howl and a freezing rain fell from the gray, turbulent skies. Carl sensed that the spirit of the lake was ready to make itself known.
They headed around the final rocky outcropping just south of Grand Marais and caught sight of the thin landing. Carl manned the main docking rope at the bow. Stranger sailed into the west bay and as she came about to find a safer site, her main boom bowed under the weight of ice and snow. Captain Clark screamed orders to the crew, but the ship drifted onto rocks some 500 feet from the Grand Marais shore.
Carl prayed he was dreaming and wished he were back in the humid, mosquito-infested forests. He quickly ran below deck and saw that several planks had sprung from the collision.
Angry dark lake water spewed into the main hold. Almost in a daze, Carl clumsily ran to the upper decks to report this finding to Captain Clark. Captain Clark and the other crew were using axes to chop the entangled mast free. One man, Carl could not tell who, was washed overboard. The man quickly vanished in the seething water.
Suddenly, a hideous gale arose from the northwest, filled the main sails and pushed Stranger off the reef. Now unmanageable, her lower levels became water logged, and the selfish winds pulled her out into the open lake.
Carl knew that the spirit of the lake had come to take what it had claimed as its own – a new addition for its sunken collection. Settlers on shore witnessed what was happening. Several launched a small fishing boat and attempted to rescue the crew. The tiny fishing craft bobbed helplessly in the merciless December waters but was able to come close to the port side of the Stranger. Carl managed to make his way port and shouted to the would-be rescuers.
He recognized Sam Howenstein and Jack Scott; he had worked with them in summer cutting timber near Gunflint Lake. Jack threw a rope to Carl, and he grabbed it. The water and icy air cut into Carl’s hands like razors. He tried with every ounce of his fading strength to secure the rope and bring the small boat along side. But the hands that had once easily gripped and swung mighty axes from dawn until dusk, had pulled trees from the deepest wood and loaded countless ships, now failed in the unforgiving cold. The lost rope slipped over the edge of the ship and fell into the foaming waters. Again Sam and Jack tried to get the line to Carl, but they simply could not throw the lifeline close enough.
The wind and the sea began to surge. Carl met Sam’s eyes and saw a helpless, sorrowful futility. The small fishing boat reluctantly turned and headed back to the shore.
Stranger drifted silently, crippled. Residents of Grand Marais could do nothing but watch her drift out. Dusk settled on the violent waters, and the schooner was last seen some 30 miles out.
In the icy sea, Carl looked up and thought he saw the milky stars through the clouds. Here and now, and in some odd sense, he had come to know this mysterious lake. Amid the fury of the waves, Carl calmly embraced who he had become and accepted his fate. Life, he knew now, is crafted from each decision – to leave Norway, to cut timber, to board a schooner headed north. Carl closed his eyes to dream.
This story was an embellished account of a tragic and true wreck that occurred December 12, 1875. I added a fictional fifth member of the crew. Here is a description of that lost vessel from Lake Superior Shipwrecks by Julius F. Wolff Jr., published by Lake Superior Port Cities Inc.:
“An end-of-the-season tragedy at Grand Marais, Minnesota, ended four lives and a diminutive trading schooner. With favorable weather, the 60-foot, 12-ton schooner Stranger, owned by P.E. Bradshaw & Company of Superior, continued to operate in the late season coasting trade. Under command of Captain Isaac Clark, the Stranger left Duluth on December 11 with supplies for Grand Marais. With Clark were crewmen George Coburn, Joe Cadotte and Jimmy LaFave. In their haste to leave, the crew neglected to carry an anchor, even though Captain Alfred Merritt ... had offered the anchor off his small schooner, Handy, which had already been laid up. Presumably, the Stranger would not need an anchor in Grand Marais harbor, which was sheltered from northwest winds. At any rate, the Stranger reached Grand Marais by December 12 without incident.
“Before she could unload, however, a storm arose and Captain Clark tried to move the ship around the point to a more sheltered section of the harbor. She struck on the rocks and became unmanageable. Waves poured over her and she capsized. George Coburn was swept overboard and drowned; the other three, desperately swinging axes, cut loose the masts and the rigging, and the schooner righted. Yet, with an off-land wind and without an anchor, she began drifting toward the open lake.
“Seeing her plight, a group of Grand Marais men, Sam Howenstein, Jack Scott, John Morrison, Sam Zimmerman, Sam Paul and another named LaPlante, made a death-defying attempt to reach the schooner with a fishing boat. They did get alongside, but the schooner crew were too weakened by exposure to grasp lines thrown to them and the sea was too rough to permit boarding. Reluctantly, the rescuers had to give up and pull for shore, which they reached four miles from their point of departure in an exhausted condition. The Stranger drifted into the open lake with the remaining crew still aboard. They were never seen again.
“With sub-zero temperatures and an offshore gale, there was little chance of survival in a small dismasted ship between Grand Marais and the Keweenaw 80 miles away. The missing anchor proved to be terribly important.”
Michael Glaeser, a freelance writer who focuses on Lake Superior and Minnesota’s North Shore, lives near St. Paul with his wife, Mary, and two sons, Wolfe and Keiran.
The Wreck of the Stranger - Lake Superior Magazine
Home The Lake Maritime The Stranger
by Michael J. Glaeser December 1, 2003
× Expand Paul Sundberg Tettegouche State Park waves “The missing anchor proved to be terribly important.” – Julius F. Wolff Jr.
Carl Rasmussen looked up through the canopy of sun-bleached sails and inhaled the incredibly frigid December lake air.
The crisp morning breeze burned his face and sparked his senses. He took another deep breath, this time tilting his head back and closing his eyes. The motion of the Big Lake reminded him of the bottomless fjords of home where he had traveled during the winter shipping seasons. Now he was here, half a world away, living a new life on the north shore of Minnesota.
The sails cracked, awakening him from his winter daydream ­– one of the last he would ever enjoy. He came back to the reality of his work as a deck hand on the clipper trading schooner Stranger as she carried a load of supplies from Duluth to Grand Marais.
The foresail boom rattled in the cutting northwest wind, and the hull groaned as the vessel cut through the deep blue water. Carl surveyed the icy horizon and saw the shadows of the vast and dense forests on the western shore of Lake Superior. His soaring ambitions of youth, the hopes of a successful logging career and the quest to craft his own life had summoned him to these endless timber-rich lands.
As he had labored in the bowels of a fishing ship in Norway, it was quite clear that he would never realize his potential or quench his thirst for challenge. He knew that destiny and adventure resided far away. It now seemed like a lifetime since he had left his homeland for this New Land.
Carl recalled his arrival in Minnesota. Lake Superior had looked like another ocean to him and the towering Norway and Scotch pines seemed to touch the heavens. He remembered the endless days spent chopping hundreds of trees to fuel the rising timber industry. Some of the timber cut with his own hands had been sent to the shipping yards in Superior, Wisconsin. In fact, Stranger had been constructed in Superior, and he believed that his trees had been used to build her. The winds grew stronger; the vessel rocked beneath him. He felt proud of her construction.
Again he was transported back into the woods – the maddening swarms of mosquitoes, the incessant and exhausting cutting of the trees and the aching in his legs and arms that made movement difficult ­– much like the difficulty now of gaining his balance on the heaving deck. Yet he knew that his labors in the forest and the frigid lake winds in his face forged his character. Idleness and doubt were thieves; he would not be robbed of any experience that brought him such insight.
Carl knew the schooner should soon head into the west bay of Grand Marais, and shortly Captain Clark called out the proper orders to ready the vessel for docking. Hearing these commands, Carl felt an enormous weight lifted from him – an odd and uncomfortable feeling haunted the small crew this voyage. Perhaps it was because they sailed so late in the season. Perhaps it was because they sailed without an anchor; theirs had been lost. Or perhaps it was that inexplicable instinct that a sailor acquires when accustomed to the sea.
Yet Lake Superior was unknown to all who sailed it. The disrespectful and the bold who boasted they knew it well found themselves telling few stories and meeting the lake’s dark, still depths.
Winds began to howl and a freezing rain fell from the gray, turbulent skies. Carl sensed that the spirit of the lake was ready to make itself known.
They headed around the final rocky outcropping just south of Grand Marais and caught sight of the thin landing. Carl manned the main docking rope at the bow. Stranger sailed into the west bay and as she came about to find a safer site, her main boom bowed under the weight of ice and snow. Captain Clark screamed orders to the crew, but the ship drifted onto rocks some 500 feet from the Grand Marais shore.
Carl prayed he was dreaming and wished he were back in the humid, mosquito-infested forests. He quickly ran below deck and saw that several planks had sprung from the collision.
Angry dark lake water spewed into the main hold. Almost in a daze, Carl clumsily ran to the upper decks to report this finding to Captain Clark. Captain Clark and the other crew were using axes to chop the entangled mast free. One man, Carl could not tell who, was washed overboard. The man quickly vanished in the seething water.
Suddenly, a hideous gale arose from the northwest, filled the main sails and pushed Stranger off the reef. Now un
manageable, her lower levels became water logged, and the selfish winds pulled her out into the open lake.
Carl knew that the spirit of the lake had come to take what it had claimed as its own – a new addition for its sunken collection. Settlers on shore witnessed what was happening. Several launched a small fishing boat and attempted to rescue the crew. The tiny fishing craft bobbed helplessly in the merciless December waters but was able to come close to the port side of the Stranger. Carl managed to make his way port and shouted to the would-be rescuers.
He recognized Sam Howenstein and Jack Scott; he had worked with them in summer cutting timber near Gunflint Lake. Jack threw a rope to Carl, and he grabbed it. The water and icy air cut into Carl’s hands like razors. He tried with every ounce of his fading strength to secure the rope and bring the small boat along side. But the hands that had once easily gripped and swung mighty axes from dawn until dusk, had pulled trees from the deepest wood and loaded countless ships, now failed in the unforgiving cold. The lost rope slipped over the edge of the ship and fell into the foaming waters. Again Sam and Jack tried to get the line to Carl, but they simply could not throw the lifeline close enough.
The wind and the sea began to surge. Carl met Sam’s eyes and saw a helpless, sorrowful futility. The small fishing boat reluctantly turned and headed back to the shore.
Stranger drifted silently, crippled. Residents of Grand Marais could do nothing but watch her drift out. Dusk settled on the violent waters, and the schooner was last seen some 30 miles out.
In the icy sea, Carl looked up and thought he saw the milky stars through the clouds. Here and now, and in some odd sense, he had come to know this mysterious lake. Amid the fury of the waves, Carl calmly embraced who he had become and accepted his fate. Life, he knew now, is crafted from each decision – to leave Norway, to cut timber, to board a schooner headed north. Carl closed his eyes to dream.
This story was an embellished account of a tragic and true wreck that occurred December 12, 1875. I added a fictional fifth member of the crew. Here is a description of that lost vessel from Lake Superior Shipwrecks by Julius F. Wolff Jr., published by Lake Superior Port Cities Inc.:
“An end-of-the-season tragedy at Grand Marais, Minnesota, ended four lives and a diminutive trading schooner. With favorable weather, the 60-foot, 12-ton schooner Stranger, owned by P.E. Bradshaw & Company of Superior, continued to operate in the late season coasting trade. Under command of Captain Isaac Clark, the Stranger left Duluth on December 11 with supplies for Grand Marais. With Clark were crewmen George Coburn, Joe Cadotte and Jimmy LaFave. In their haste to leave, the crew neglected to carry an anchor, even though Captain Alfred Merritt ... had offered the anchor off his small schooner, Handy, which had already been laid up. Presumably, the Stranger would not need an anchor in Grand Marais harbor, which was sheltered from northwest winds. At any rate, the Stranger reached Grand Marais by December 12 without incident.
“Before she could unload, however, a storm arose and Captain Clark tried to move the ship around the point to a more sheltered section of the harbor. She struck on the rocks and became unmanageable. Waves poured over her and she capsized. George Coburn was swept overboard and drowned; the other three, desperately swinging axes, cut loose the masts and the rigging, and the schooner righted. Yet, with an off-land wind and without an anchor, she began drifting toward the open lake.
“Seeing her plight, a group of Grand Marais men, Sam Howenstein, Jack Scott, John Morrison, Sam Zimmerman, Sam Paul and another named LaPlante, made a death-defying attempt to reach the schooner with a fishing boat. They did get alongside, but the schooner crew were too weakened by exposure to grasp lines thrown to them and the sea was too rough to permit boarding. Reluctantly, the rescuers had to give up and pull for shore, which they reached four miles from their point of departure in an exhausted condition. The Stranger drifted into the open lake with the remaining crew still aboard. They were never seen again.
“With sub-zero temperatures and an offshore gale, there was little chance of survival in a small dismasted ship between Grand Marais and the Keweenaw 80 miles away. The missing anchor proved to be terribly important.”
Michael Glaeser, a freelance writer who focuses on Lake Superior and Minnesota’s North Shore, lives near St. Paul with his wife, Mary, and two sons, Wolfe and Keiran.