We had lots of feedback about the "South American" video we highlighted earlier this month. One note included a link to the top photo, which is labeled on the web as "Lake Superior passenger ship METEOR". Curious thing... if you type that quoted phrase into Google (including quotes), the only place it appears anywhere on the 'net (until now) is on Chuck Voelker's excellent Copper Country Reflections, hosted right here at Pasty Central. Does anybody else know anything about such a vessel? The only "Meteor" I can find in regard to Great Lakes shipping is the Whaleback Museum SS Meteor in Superior, Wisconsin. Enjoy the video at that link, with a tune I would entitle "Return to Oktoberfest" ;o>

Our thanks to Donna Flye from White Pine, who provided today's photo. By the way, White Pine was in the news this week, as Highland Copper announced a $17 Million stock offering to complete their acquisition of the White Pine project. Could the mine possibly re-open soon? Stay tuned in days ahead...

Have a Happy Thanksgiving, and have a good week :o)

Great pictures and great news about White Pine! Hoping it all works out for everyone in that area!!

The SS Meteor was owned by the Lake Superior Transit Company and was the sister ship of the SS Pewabic. Both ships were passenger carriers, but on occasion also transported cargo. These two ships are famous as the Pewabic collided with the Meteor while throwing bags of mail between the two ships off Alpena in Lake Huron on August 9, 1865. When the Pewabic sunk, it was carrying a cargo of over 250 tons of copper ingots from the Keweenaw mines that went down with the ship. Many of these ingots can be found in museums and in private collections, still carrying the LS and anchor signifying the Lake Superior Transit Company stamping as well as what mine the copper in the ingot was from.

As an aside, a great article from the Professional Mariner on the Pewabic and Meteor can be found in the link below:

Sinking of the Pewabic

The Meteor was of the same construction as the one in the black and white.

I have tried to blow up the black and white of the "Meteor" and I can not say if the name on the bow is meteor or not. Looks like it begins with a "N" and ends In one as well.

What is the source of the picture? I have been looking for a picture of the Pewabic's sister ship and all I could find is a picture of the whaleback you mentioned.

Cool ship! Brings to mind the ship that brought us from Scotland, The Carinthia, when our family immigrated in 1957. My parents always talked being sea-sick during the voyage due to the rough Atlantic ocean, and you can see why from the intense wave pictures about half-way down this webpage.
http://www.liverpoolships.org/carinthia_cunard_line.html

Quite the story, Alex.
Thanks for sharing...

The first week of February 1959, my parents and I sailed from Liverpool to New York via Halifax on the Carinthia's sister ship Sylvania. Halfway across the Atlantic the Sylvania found itself in the midst of a severe storm, much like the one shown in the pictures on the above web site.

The ship had to heave to for two days to stay headed into the waves, and actually made about 150 miles negative progress back toward England. But the ship was extremely seaworthy, and the captain and crew did an excellent job throughout the voyage.

The Denny-Brown stabilisers mentioned in the article worked well. The stabilisers were something like small airplane wings below the water line, designed to reduce rolling in bad weather.

The top level enclosed deck was called the Promenade Deck, which had very large windows at the front, directly under the ship's bridge, just like the Carinthia. As the ship pitched into the violent seas, about one out of every three waves brought water over the bow all the way to the base of those windows.

Although we did not get seasick, many other passengers did. Our cabin steward advised passengers to eat bacon and bananas if our stomachs were feeling the effects of the storm.

"Why bacon and bananas?", we asked.

"Because them's the only two things that taste the same in both directions," he chortled.

Bill...that's a funny story, I'll have to ask my mother if she remembers being offered bacon and bananas. I was only two and don't remember anything.

James – late in her career the Meteor suffered a fire, after which she was converted into a barge. Her name was then changed to the Nelson Bloom. Perhaps the photo that you mentioned was taken after the conversion and renaming.

For those interested in the history of shipping on the Great Lakes, I highly recommend Dana Thomas Bowen's trilogy:

Lore of the Lakes, first published in September, 1940
Memories of the Lakes, first published in December, 1946
Shipwrecks of the Lakes, first published in October, 1952

These books contain a wealth of information, many photographs, and are very well indexed. Although long out of print, they are available through antiquarian book sources such as abebooks.com.

The Meteor is listed in all three books, and Chapter 6 of Memories of the Lakes is an in-depth discussion of the sinking of the Pewabic, as well as the subsequent successful career of the Meteor.

Awesome!