Brutal Lake Superior storm

 

The rocks that the scenic Marquette Harbor Lighthouse perches atop get pounded by massive waves rolling in off Lake Superior.

Shauna and I just returned from a week up in Michigan's north country, all of it spent on the Upper Peninsula. This is one of my favorite places in the world. There aren't many people, interesting habitats abound, and they tend to be largely undisturbed.

Late on October 14, winds started to build, and this presented a wonderful opportunity to see this massive lake whipped into a frenzy. Superior's scale is impressive. It is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area (Lake Baikal in Russia holds more water but is smaller in size) and is 1,333 feet in depth at its deepest point. If winds are from the north, they roar up to 150 miles unimpeded across open waters to the Marquette area, where these photos were made.

By the next morning, the waves were crazy and we shifted our agenda to focus on photo-documenting the watery fruits of this gale. Conditions were fairly brutish with cold temperatures and winds so strong that I usually drove my tripod legs deep into the sand to better hold it steady. I later learned that out on the open lake, waves were up to 25 feet in height, and odd rogue waves reached 34 feet. They had diminished somewhat by the time they reached shore but remained thoroughly impressive.

These conditions were very similar to what caused the sinking of the 729-foot-long Edmund Fitzgerald on November 10, 1975, near Whitefish Point. All 29 crewmen were lost when the freighter was snapped in two during the storm. We saw no freighters on the lake on this day, and I suspect most or all of them anchored in sheltered locales such as Whitefish Point Bay (100 miles to the east of Marquette) to sit this out. Indeed, on a visit to Whitefish Point the day after taking these photos, I learned that five big "laker" freighters indeed had sought shelter there.

The Presque Isle Harbor Breakwater Lighthouse gets slammed by an enormous wave. The lighthouse is 55 feet in height; about the same as a 5-story building. Can you imagine working in your fifth story office, and a wave slams the building with such force that the spray reaches your window?

All of this was fascinating to bear witness to and attempt to photograph. In the Marquette area, anywhere there was a lake overlook, it was packed with locals (and some tourists) watching the spectacle. I trotted out a number of lenses to capture this action, and the one above was made with my big wildlife lens, the Canon 800mm f/5.6. The first image was made with the indispensable (to me) Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 II.

Such regular hydrological disturbance of the shoreline is important to the maintenance of plant communities, perhaps especially beach communities. I have photos of some of those habitats and the hardy plants that vegetate them and will try to post some later and describe their ecology.