Exploring Fabius Township and St. Joseph County, Michigan, with side trips all over this Great Lakes state

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Viewed from the top of the bridge

You are looking at part of the structure of the Shelldrake Dam and the foot bridge that crosses over it in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.   This dam and bridge were a part of a rustic (i.e., no modern plumbing) Michigan State Forest Campground until closed two years ago because of budget problems.

It was located just to the northwest of Paradise (see my Mighty Mac bridge photo on April 18) and southeast of Whitefish Point, off which the Edmund Fitzgerald sank in Lake Superior in November, 1975.  The "Fitz" was carrying taconite, low grade iron ore, from Superior, Wisconsin, for the steel mills of Detroit and Toledo when she sank just north of Whitefish Bay in the "gales of November;"  this tragedy of all lives lost was immortalized by Canadian folksinger Gordon Lightfoot.  For more of this story of the inland seas, go to the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum.

For more bridges from around the world, visit Louis la Vache's Sunday Bridge Series

7 comments:

  1. «Louis» really likes your new masthead photo and he's very happy you are again posting a bridge for Sunday Bridges! «Louis» has linked it!

    Pour le 1er Mai, «Louis» vous donne un bouquet de Muguet!

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  2. Very neat bridge photo. This is certainly a different sort of perspective on things.

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  3. Neat photo! And I'm very familiar with Gordon Lightfoot's "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald." Lightfoot is well-known here. :)

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  4. That's a very, very good take on the theme! Love it!

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  5. I love Gordon Lightfoot. I named my first boat, The Edmund Fitzgerald. She was a lot smaller and didn't meet the same unfortunate end, however.

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  6. Thanks all for the positive comments on a slightly odd bridge photo. Gordon Lightfoot is a favorite of mine, too.
    And B2 do you sail back and forth from FL to Traverse City? And very glad you EF did not sink.

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  7. Great photo for Sunday Bridge! Your title photo also reminded me of the woods I used to play in. Then I realized that you're in St.Jo. I grew up in Berrien so I'm loving all the photos of Michiana, thanks! ;-D

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