Introduction
The ship comes in, the ship goes out. As the daughter of a Great Lakes ship captain, I grew up to the rhythm of the transport of iron ore. From the arrival of the shipping orders in March to âlay upâ in December, from climbing the shipâs ladder weekly to see my father while he was in port to watching his ship disappear again over the horizon line, my life was dominated by the excitement, the loneliness, the drama, and the lure of the shipping industry and the water.
My hometown of Duluth, Minnesota, is located at the western tip of Lake Superior. The water has always been the life of Duluth and its sister city, Superior, Wisconsin, where my father grew up. When iron ore was discovered in northern Minnesota and Wisconsin in the late 1800s, the Twin Ports, with their natural harbor, made it possible for giant cargo ships to carry ore from the mines in the north down through the Soo Locks to the steel mills on the lower lakes in the east. For generations, many local men have worked as shipbuilders, dockworkers, chandlers, uniform manufacturers, stevedores, and bridge tenders.
And then there are those men who have worked on the lake. My father, Willis Carl Michler, was one of them. He sailed the Great Lakes for forty-seven years and was a captain of thirteen different ships for twenty-one of those years. Drawn to the water and the big ships as a young man, he followed a dream of becoming a Great Lakes ship captain, and he and my mother and I lived it out together, in all its rich and varied and demanding dimensions.
My fatherâs sailing career spanned the height of Great Lakes iron ore shipping, the lows of the Great Depression, World War II(during which time the sailors served the country as members of the Merchant Marine), the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway, the advent of radar, and the development of the taconite trade. He sailed before the invention of computers, GPS, cell phones, email, and Skypeâand before sailors could apply for summer vacations. When I was growing up, we relied on letters Dad mailed from ports throughout the Great Lakes, calls from pay phones, and rare ship-to-shore calls. Today the ships that traverse the Great Lakes can be tracked on the internet. Many are twice the size of the freighters my dad first sailed, though at this writing, my fatherâs last command, the SS Herbert C. Jackson , is still sailing, albeit with modern renovations. Instead of raw iron ore, the ships now carry taconite pellets and varied other cargoes such as coal and grain. Yet for those who continue to work on the ships, some things remain unchangedâthe urgency to deliver cargo quickly, the challenges of weather, time away from family, and the powerful call to a life on the water.
My dadâs ship rests at the dock in Ashland, Wisconsin, a seventy-mile drive from the Twin Ports of Duluth-Superior. The dock was built in 1915 to load ships with iron ore mined on the Gogebic Range of eastern Wisconsin and western Michigan.
My father was the first in his family to have a career on the water. Historically, his people were people of the land. Settling in the Fond du Lac area of southern Wisconsin from the agricultural heartland of Germany, they were courageous, industrious, disciplined, and religious. Some remained farmers, while others became blacksmiths. Two family members founded the Michler Company in Fond du Lac, crafting huge sleighs for use in Alaska and one for the Antarctic explorer Admiral Richard Byrd. One of them ran for mayor and helped found the family church. And one of them, my grandfather, left his people to become a conductor for the Soo Line Railroad Company in the northern Wisconsin port town of Superior, on the shores of the worldâs largest freshwater lake.
At the age of sixteen, at the urging of his father and with the tools of his heritage plus his own romantic spirit, my father sailed out to sea. Ultimately, he became a Great Lakes ship captain.
From
The ship comes in, the ship goes out. As the daughter of a Great Lakes ship captain, I grew up to the rhythm of the transport of iron ore. From the arrival of the shipping orders in March to âlay upâ in December, from climbing the shipâs ladder weekly to see my father while he was in port to watching his ship disappear again over the horizon line, my life was dominated by the excitement, the loneliness, the drama, and the lure of the shipping industry and the water.
My hometown of Duluth, Minnesota, is located at the western tip of Lake Superior. The water has always been the life of Duluth and its sister city, Superior, Wisconsin, where my father grew up. When iron ore was discovered in northern Minnesota and Wisconsin in the late 1800s, the Twin Ports, with their natural harbor, made it possible for giant cargo ships to carry ore from the mines in the north down through the Soo Locks to the steel mills on the lower lakes in the east. For generations, many local men have worked as shipbuilders, dockworkers, chandlers, uniform manufacturers, stevedores, and bridge tenders.
And then there are those men who have worked on the lake. My father, Willis Carl Michler, was one of them. He sailed the Great Lakes for forty-seven years and was a captain of thirteen different ships for twenty-one of those years. Drawn to the water and the big ships as a young man, he followed a dream of becoming a Great Lakes ship captain, and he and my mother and I lived it out together, in all its rich and varied and demanding dimensions.
My fatherâs sailing career spanned the height of Great Lakes iron ore shipping, the lows of the Great Depression, World War II(during which time the sailors served the country as members of the Merchant Marine), the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway, the advent of radar, and the development of the taconite trade. He sailed before the invention of computers, GPS, cell phones, email, and Skypeâand before sailors could apply for summer vacations. When I was growing up, we relied on letters Dad mailed from ports throughout the Great Lakes, calls from pay phones, and rare ship-to-shore calls. Today the ships that traverse the Great Lakes can be tracked on the internet. Many are twice the size of the freighters my dad first sailed, though at this writing, my fatherâs last command, the SS Herbert C. Jackson , is still sailing, albeit with modern renovations. Instead of raw iron ore, the ships now carry taconite pellets and varied other cargoes such as coal and grain. Yet for those who continue to work on the ships, some things remain unchangedâthe urgency to deliver cargo quickly, the challenges of weather, time away from family, and the powerful call to a life on the water.
My dadâs ship rests at the dock in Ashland, Wisconsin, a seventy-mile drive from the Twin Ports of Duluth-Superior. The dock was built in 1915 to load ships with iron ore mined on the Gogebic Range of eastern Wisconsin and western Michigan.
My father was the first in his family to have a career on the water. Historically, his people were people of the land. Settling in the Fond du Lac area of southern Wisconsin from the agricultural heartland of Germany, they were courageous, industrious, disciplined, and religious. Some remained farmers, while others became blacksmiths. Two family members founded the Michler Company in Fond du Lac, crafting huge sleighs for use in Alaska and one for the Antarctic explorer Admiral Richard Byrd. One of them ran for mayor and helped found the family church. And one of them, my grandfather, left his people to become a conductor for the Soo Line Railroad Company in the northern Wisconsin port town of Superior, on the shores of the worldâs largest freshwater lake.
At the age of sixteen, at the urging of his father and with the tools of his heritage plus his own romantic spirit, my father sailed out to sea. Ultimately, he became a Great Lakes ship captain.
From
Similar Books
