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Split Rock Lighthouse Commentary

(I don’t say everything here. And please, make it your own!)

Lake Superior Facts

• Size: 

• 350 miles long/160 miles wide

• Average depth 438 feet, deepest is 1333 ft

• This makes Lake Superior the largest lake in the world by surface area

• Third largest by Depth and Volume

• Lake Baikal in Russia is #1

• Lake Tanganyika in #2

• Holds 3 quadrillion gallons. That 3,000,000,000,000,000 gallons of water

• That’s 10% of the earth’s fresh water (that's in liquid, not solid, form)

• If you emptied out Lake Superior, it would cover North and South America in a foot of water

• Water Residence time is 191 years

• 848 Tributaries, St. Louis river is the largest

• 1 exit: Empties into Lake Huron (NOT Michigan)

• Elevation: 

• Lake Superior sits at 601 ft in elevation

• Bottom of Superior is the lowest point in North America, at 732 ft below elevation

• Shoreline:

• 1,721 miles of shoreline…Island account for 997 miles of that

• 2,342 miles to go from Lift Bridge to Atlantic Ocean

• Superior → Huron → Erie → Ontario → Atlantic (near Quebec)

• 7-10 day journey for Ships

• Cold: 

• Average Temp of lake is 42 degree Fahrenheit

• Multiple thermoclines:

• One that is just a few feet down (although the depths vary by season/winds)

• More as you progress deeper

• Deeper water stays at a consistent 39 degrees

• Seiches(SAY-sh):

• Lake Superior has a tide! 

• Only 5 cm at its max, so no one notices or cares

• Water levels do fluctuate, but that's due to pressure systems, not the moon.

• Seiches are often confused with being the tide on the lake. But its a totally different thing. 

• When there are pressure systems or storms on one end of the lake, it can force the water to the other end of the lake

• When the wind/pressure stops, the water rebounds to the other side of the lake

• This can happen surprisingly quickly

• 8 hours to get from from 1 side of the lake to the other

• Small seiches are common, and usually undetected

• Large Seiches can flood beaches, destroy docks, erode shoreline

• In 1995, a large seiche on Superior caused the water level to rise and then fall 3 ft within 15 minutes!

• Boats were left hanging, tied to the docks!

• Good for the lake: seiches mix the water, distributing nutrients from the deeper water to the sunlit surface levels, where they are needed for phytoplankton growth

• Oligotrophic Lake Classification:Lotta water, not as many fish. 

• 34 native species of fish, 87-88 total species in Lake superior

• Fish have adapted to live in very cold water

• Because of the small watershed, cold water, lack of minerals, lake superior has relatively few fish compared to the volume of the lake

• That’s why the water is so clear. There’s not much in there!

• This doesn’t mean it's unhealthy. It has a healthy population of plankton, invertebrates, and coldwater fish. They just aren’t in as much abundance as in other lakes

• Average clarity is 24 ft. Max visibility is 80 feet

• At split rock, the average visibility is more like 50/60 ft

Peregrine Falcons

• Peregrine falcons are considered the fastest animal in the world. Cheetahs, the fastest land animal, can run at speeds of 80mph. Peregrine Falcons can fly at over 200 miles per hour. Fastest recorded speed is 273 mph 

• How? Peregrines nest on cliffs to protect their young, and also because of the wind drafts created by the wind hitting the cliff. Peregrines don't care about the water - they care about other birds - hunters, not fishers - so they nest on cliffs because the wind comes across the lake, hits the cliff, and creates updrafts. They use these updrafts to ride several thousand feet in the air. Once up there, they can circle around till they spot another animal that looks tasty. When they spot a prey that looks tasty, they tuck their wings behind them in a v-shaped pattern, and dive. This dive is called a Stoop, and it was used by engineers to inform the design of the Raptor fighter jet.. When they are diving in the sloop, that's when they reach speeds of over 200 mph. 

• When they are diving at that speed, the question is not “will I catch up to the other bird?” its “what do I do when I catch up to the other bird?'' And Peregrines have the most metal answer to this question. They curl their talons up like a fist, diving at over 200 mph, they dive talon first into the other bird. Without slowing down. Its a literal eruption of feathers. The other bird dies instantly (and very humanely, although I doubt the peregrine cares). The peregrine then pulls out of the dive, grabs whats left of the bird’s carcass, and dinner is served!

• Human Equivalent: Crashing at full speed into McDonald’s just to get a burger. 

• Peregrines are more loyal to the nest than their mate. One mate dies, the other will find a new mate, but bring them back to the same nest. Because of this home loyalty, peregrine nests are often passed down from generation to generation. 

• Month by Month

• May: often not there yet, or just eggs. 

• June: Babies hatch, cannot leave nest. Parents very protective

• July: by end of the month, the babies start learning to fly, occasionally in the vicinity of the nest

• August: Babies can fly, not well. Can’t hunt. Within ½ mile of nest, rely on parents for food

• September: start flying further from the nest

• October: migrate south sometime.

Split Rock Lighthouse

• Cliff is 130 ft tall by falcons, 120 ft tall by caves

• Built in 1908, completed in 1910

• When they went to build the lighthouse, there weren’t any roads. Only way out there was via boat. So, all the materials on sight were loaded on a boat, and anchored over by the caves. They built a derrick and hoist, and used manual labor to lift all the material up over the cliff. 

• Misserale job. 

• On a calm day, not so bad. But Lake Superior is known for her storms.

• Men quit so regularly, they had to come up with some solutions to keep them around.

• Increased pay & French Chef to cook them dinner

Madeira Shipwreck

• Sank on November 28th, 1905

• Mataafa Storm:

• Winds were strong: 60mph on land, 70-80 mph on water

• Waves were recorded at being 51 feet tall

• Fog isolated the lake, captains later reported they couldn’t see the bow of their own ship

• Especially concerning, considering there was no sonar/gps then

• Blizzard

• Of course.

• Problem with a blizzard is not snow falling (which was a lot), but that Lake Superior is a freshwater lake. Every wave that crashed over the ship would freeze, creating a layer of ice

• Within hours, the ship could become entombed in 9ft of ice. With that much ice, you can’t adjust deck lines, you mechanic gears freeze over, and you can’t even walk

• The Titanic hit an iceberg, on Lake Superior, we turn into icebergs!

• William Edenborn & Madeira

• Captain Talbot set sail, unaware that this storm was brewing

• Weather predictions were about as accurate as simply guessing

• The William Edenborn was on its way to Two Harbors to pick of its load

• Was towing the Madeira

• Madeira was 436 feet long, and operated as a schooner barge

• No engine, but with sails

• More cargo can be held on a ship with sails (engines are big)

• On good days, raise the sail up and both ships make good timing, on poor days, the Madeira is slowly towed behind the Edenborn

• In a storm, you don’t want to be tied to another ship, towline will make ships crash into each other, so if a storm came up it wasn’t unusual to cast off the other ship and lose the money. If there was a crew onboard the other ship, they would drop anchor and pray.

• Captain assumed it was going to be good weather, so had a crew onboard the Madeira to man the sail. 

• When the winds picked up, he untied the two boats, leaving the Madeira to fend for herself in the storm.

• Edenborn continued on down the coast, got disoriented in the fog, and crashed into Split Rock River 

• Everyone aboard the Edenborn made it to shore except for one guy, who was thrown headfirst  into an open deck hatch, when a wave hit the beached ship (Third Engineer James Johnson)

• Madeira meanwhile, was tossed around in the storm for hours

• Unable to drop anchor due to ice buildup (probably. We know that they didn’t deploy the anchor, and that is the only reasonable explanation)

• Unable to control the ship (No engine, and your not going to raise the sails in those winds)

• Unable to see with all the fog/waves/blizzard

• The Wreck:

• 5:30 in the morning of November 28th

• Ship was broadside slammed into the cliff that reached up to their masts

• Ship was being repeatedly slammed into cliff, and started to break apart

• Deckhand Fred Benson grabbed a rope, lept from the ship onto the cliff (which was covered in ice) and climbed to the top of the cliff. Attached a rock to the rope, and tossed an end down to the quickly sinking bow (ship had broken apart by this time), and hauled up the 3 men onboard that. Then he tossed the rope down to the stern, a pulled up 6 more men before the ship completely sank

• First Mate, James Morrow, died after climbing the mast in an attempt to reach safety

• 10 of the 11 men on board survived.

• 2 days later, when the storm subsided, a tugboat left Two Harbors, and started hunting for survivors up the North Shore. They picked up the remaining crew of the Edenborn and Madeira

• They also picked up the corpse of James Morrow, which had washed ashore

Dead Bodies in Lake Superior

• Bottom of Lake Superior is a consistent 39 degrees - same temperature as a morgue

• At this temperature, the bacteria that decompose human remains cannot survive

• Dead bodies don’t decompose - Lake Superior never gives up her dead

• Saponification - fat turns into soap

• Bodies get essentially perserved as soap

• Predation doesn’t effect all the bodies. We don’t have a ton of fish in the lake. So not all bodies would be eaten (unlike in the ocean) and after Saponification, fish aren’t interested in the corpses

Geology of Lake Superior

• Mid Continental Rift:

• 1.1 Billion years ago, the tectonic plates were pulling apart, and a rift opened up 

• Hotspot also in the area

• LOTS of volcanic activity in the area. All the rocks along the shore are proof of that volcanic area

• Can see the rift spot clearly beneath the lighthouse

• Glaciers formed over the rift zone, carving out the basin

• Glacial melt caused an uprise in the region to happen, magma filled in the gaps during the uprise, and that's how all our cliffs formed

• All this can be seen at the lighthouse 

• See these diagrams: 

• https://lakeheadca.com/events-education/geology/mid-continent-rift

Split Rock Lighthouse

• Built in 1910, as a result of the Mataafa Storm

• Mataafa storm wrecked 29 boats, many of which couldn’t be salvaged

• Caused 3.567 million of dollars in damages (which was a lot more in 1905, but inflation calculators can’t accurately estimate what that is today)

• 36 people died in the storm

• Pittsburgh Steamship Company, a part of US Steel corporation,  owned many of these ships (a third of their fleet was lost in the storm)

• Petitioned congress to build more lighthouses to make shipping safer on the great lakes

• If shipping is too dangerous, investors won’t invest. (the loss of life was of less concern to the executives)

• Congress passed the bill, and two years after the storm, construction began

• They built it for $75,000

• 130 foot cliff, lighthouse is 54 feet tall

• The light is therefore at an official focal point of 168 ft. giving it a visible distance of 22 miles

• That's the official visible distance. It has been reported being visible up to 60 miles away

• 3rd Order Fresnel lens was shipped in from Paris to illuminate it

• Lens is floating on a bed of Mercury, which makes for an almost frictionless rotation

• Elaborate gear mechanism allows the lens to rotate consistently 

• When on, the light flashes for a ½ second, every 10 seconds

• Kerosene lamp was originally used

Pebble Beach

• Named Little Two harbors back in the day

• Settled by Norweigans before the lighthouse was built

• Fishing village

• Traded fish for haircuts with the lighthouse keepers

• Dock built for the mail-boat, the SS America

• Shipwreck chunks of the Madeira near dock because they were going to be salvaged in the 70’s for scrap metal, but after the price of steel dropped, the left it all in the bay

• Lake Superior

  • Largest by surface

  • Third by volume (3,000,000,000,000,000 that is quadrillion gallons) 15 zeros!

    • 1. Baikal - Russia (deepest lake over mile deep; 6 quad gallons) 5387 ft

      • 12.7k sq mi

    • 2. Tanganyika - Central Africa (longest lake, over 418 miles, 5 quad gallons) 4820 ft deep

      • 12.2 sq mi

  • 31,700 sq mi. - 82,100 sq km - 20,287,963 acres

    • For reference Mille Lacs, a popular big lake in central MN is 207 sq mi (132,516 acres).

    • Bde Maka Ska formerly Lake Calhon is about 1 sq mi

  • 350 mi long (560 km)

  • 160 mi wide (260 km)

  • Average depth is 483 ft (147 M)

  • Max depth is 1333 ft (406 m)

    • Lowest point on North American continent (732 ft below sea level)

  • 1,721 mi of shoreline (2,783 km)

    • Islands account for 997 mi of shoreline (1605 km)

  • 2,900 cu mi of water (12,000 cu km)

  • Cover North/South America with 1 foot of water

  • 10% of world's fresh water not in ice

  • 42 degree average temp

  • Water residence time is 191 years

  • Average visibility is 24 feet. Can be upwards of 75 at times

  • Surface elevation +/- 601 ft (183 m) above sea level

  • Empties into Huron not Michigan

  • Warming twice as fast as surrounding air

    • 4+ degrees since mid 1970s

  • 848 tributaries

  • 1 exit

• Seiches - tides

  • Caused by high winds and low pressure systems

  • 3+ feet

  • 8 hours to shift

• 2342 miles to Atlantic from lift bridge

  • Superior, Huron, Erie, Ontario → Atlantic (near Quebec)

  • About 7-10 days for freighters

• 78 species of fish

• 350 recorded shipwrecks with 1000+ lives lost

• Highest official buoy recorded wave is 26.6 ft in 2001. Unofficial is 51 ft

  • Just know about the Mataafa storm

• Geology

  • At one time there were peaks up to 39,000 feet 2.5+ billion years ago

• North Shore

  1. Precambrian rock

     • 4.5 billion - 540 million years ago

  2. Magma forced up at intercontinental plate boundary

  3. Ores deposited during Penokean Orogeny

  4. Formed Sawtooth Mountains (think Lutsen)

  5. Compacted + eroded

  6. 950 million years ago

     • Mid-continental rift - Great lakes to Kansas

     • one of the deepest rifts in the world

     • Mesoproterozoic rift valley

• Glaciation

  • Significant number of glaciations

  • Most recent (thus visible) is Wisconsin Glaciation

    • 12-10000 years ago

  • Laurentian ice sheet

  • Ice 1.25 miles thick in the area

  • Lake Duluth

    • Similar boundaries to Lake Superior

    • 500 feet higher than current shore - Pretty much Skyline Parkway

    • Deposited sand that created Park Point and much of South Shore

  • Land as we know it formed by this glacier

  • BWCA is immature land form

    • Mature land is well drained

      • No “puddles”

  • and still rebounding

  • Just after glacier retreated the first Natives arrived in North America

• St. Louis River

  • In both MN and WI

  • Largest river flowing into Lake Superior

    • 192 mi (309 km) long

    • Starts 15 mi east of Hoyt Lakes

    • 3,634 sq mi (9,410 sq km) watershed

  • 12,000 Acre Estuary

    • Cold and wide open lake water and warm river water mixing makes nice habitat for different creatures and plant life.

  • Ojibwe name for river is Gichigami - zibo (great lake river)

  • Renamed for French explorer around 1778

  • Riviere Fond Du Lac from 1688-1778

  • Very polluted in mid 20th century

  • EPA steps in during 1975 to start clean up

    • WLSSD formed

• Native Americans and Fur Traders

  • Grand Portage

    • Long been a portage from Fond Du Lac to Thomson

      • Head North to Lake Vermillion then to the Rainy River and North

      • Head to the Savannah Portage (Cromwell area) then to the Mississippi and South

    • 6.5 mile long trail

    • 450 feet in elevation gain

    • Voyageurs divided portage into 19 “pauses”

      • ⅓ to ½ mile apart

    • Each responsible for 3 - 90 lbs pack

    • Walk one to “pause” return and repeat

    • Portage would take 3-5 days

    • In use as late as the 1870s

      • Railroads made its use obsolete

• Jay Cooke State Park

  • 8,125 acres

  • Founded in 1915

    • First 2,350 acres donated by a power company in 1915

    • Developed by the CCC

    • More land added in 1945

  • Geology

    • 2 billion year old rock

      • Thomson formation

      • Formed around the Paleoproterozoic era around 2-1.9 billion years ago

      • Began as an ancient seafloor

        • Formed shale and greywacke

        • No fossils as it is older than complex life

      • 1.85 billion years ago

        • Penokean orogeny exerted lots of heat and pressure compacting old seafloor

      • 1.1 billion years ago

        • Midcontinental rift created great lakes (see above) and flooded area with basalt

        • Cracked the Thomson formation into current formations

        • Some rock cooled more slowly creating diabase

          • Looks similar to the slate of the Thomson formation but lacks the “layers”

      • Other rock layers indicate the area was once at the mouth of a large river

    • 10,000 year old clay

• Duluth

  • City of Duluth

    • Native Americans

      • The Anishinaabe, also known as the Ojibwe or Chippewa,have inhabited the Lake Superior region for over five hundred years

      • Preceded by the Dakota, Fox,Menominee, Nipigon, Noquet and Gros Ventres

      • Ojibwe the “middle men” with fur traders and other native tribes

    • Fur Trade

      • Fur trade pushed the European explorers further west

        • In particular beaver pelts

      • Original fur trade post was in present day Superior

      • American Fur Trade Company (John Jacob Astor) started trading in 1808

      • Built first permanent fort in Fond Du Lac in 1817 (see Grand Portage)

    • Population rise and fall

      • Rumors of copper mining caused surge of settlers in the 1850s

      • Road to MPLS also finished making easier travel

      • Railroads from Duluth went to the Pacific and seaways to the Atlantic made Duluth an important port

      • Railroads and mining brought many workers to the area

      • Duluth incorporated in 1857

      • 1860

        • First Census - 71 people

      • Late 1860’s and early 1870s Duluth was fastest growing city in the Nation

      • 1873 stock market crash led to huge downsize in population

      • By the late 1870’s mining and logging had brought Duluth back

      • Turn of the century nearly 100,000 citizens

    • Early 1900s Duluth port handled more tonnage than New York and Chicago

    • 1905

      • Duluth home to most millionaires per capita in USA

    • Mid 1910s

      • Large steel plants built

      • Thoughts of population growing to 300,000 +

      • Lots of Finnish and Scandinavian immigrants came to area

    • Duluth economy good through the wars due to lots of steel use

    • Economic downturn starting in the 1950s

      • High grade iron gave out on the Iron Range

      • Low grade could not compete with foreign steel

      • Steel plants closed causing significant economic damage

    • City turned economy towards tourism

      • Everything getting better since

    • City today

      • 87.43 square miles (226.44 km2)

      • 67.79 square miles (175.58 km2) is land and 19.64 square miles (50.87 km2) is water

      • 607 feet to 1427 feet (airport elevations)

      • Second largest MN city by area (to Hibbing)

      • 4th largest by population

        • 86,128

      • Population density was 1,272.5 inhabitants per square mile (2010)

• Duluth Harbor

  • May 30, 1871

    • First shipment

    • Piers extended to 950 feet in June

  • 1872

    • Old outer piers destroyed by storms

  • 1873

    • Canal in full use

  • 1880s

    • Not much work done, in bad repair. Fog horn installed

  • 1874

    • First light house lit

    • Visible from 12 miles

  • 1889

    • second lighthouse built

    • 1890s

      • iron ore arrived

      • Outer piers and docks taken apart

      • 1896-1902 canal widened to current width

• Bridge

  • Originally built in 1905

  • Ferry built due to lack of funding

  • Trip across took 60 seconds

  • Held 60 tons

  • 350 people and vehicles

  • Rise in population and number of vehicles made ferry obsolete

  • Upgraded to lift starting in 1929

• First lift on March 29, 1930

  • 3 minutes to full height

• Current operations

  • Span

  • 390 feet long

  • 1000 tons

  • Blocks on sides 500 tons each

  • Cement and steel

  • Works on counter balance

  • 24 2” cables hold weight

  • 6 in each corner

  • Chains balance out cable weight

  • 4 125 HP motors

    • Only two used during lifting

    • Others as backup

• Marine Traffic

  • Large ships

    • “Security” call 60 minutes out

    • Bridge up as inbound boats hit 1.5 miles

    • Outbound lift as boat reaches last buoys

    • Lifts anytime for large boats

  • Small boats

    • Call for lift

    • Only at top/bottom of the hour

  • Goal is to be up for 12 minutes or less

  • Never happens…

  • 1000 plus ships/boats visit per year

• Ice House

  • “Uncle Harvey’s Mausoleum”

  • Built in 1919

    • Sand and gravel hopper

  • “Uncle Harvey” had hopes for renewed outer harbor

    • Planned to build harbor stretching to Leif Erikson

  • Abandoned in 1922

  • Extra structure tipped over and sunk in winter 2015

• Shipping

  • Duluth originally built around shipping/trading

  • Shortest and easiest route for goods from coast to coast

    • Boat to/from Atlantic. Rail to/from Pacific

  • 2342 miles to the Atlantic by boat

  • Duluth port handles 38 million tons of cargo per year

  • 1000+ ship visits

  • 20 privately owned and operated docks

  • Number of different ships

    • Started long ago with canoes

    • Moved to sail

    • Steam

    • Fuel

  • Salties

    • Ocean going ships

      • Usually a bit shorter and smaller than lakers

        • Must be less than 740 feet to get through all of the locks

      • Sharp bow with bubble at waterline

        • More efficient over long periods at sea

      • Often bring in things such as windmill parts, other heavy machines, and salt

      • Take ore or grain back

  • Lakers

    • Stay on the Great Lakes

      • Can be 1000+ feet

      • Flat or round bow

        • More cost effective to carry larger load than be hydrodynamic

      • Ships bring in salt, cement, limestone

  • Exports for both types of ship:

    • Ore - Steel mills near all over the country

      • #1 Nationally

    • Coal - from Montana/Wyoming to steel mills

      • #4 Nationally

    • Ore/coal are 80% of exports

    • Grain - to Europe/Africa

      • #1 on Great Lakes

  • Top importers/exporters 2014 in $

    • Imports from

      • Denmark, Poland, Canada, Singapore, Latvia

    • Exports to

      • Canada, Switzerland, Algeria, Venezuela, Denmark

• Two Harbors

  • Started as Agate Bay (1854) and Burlington (1856)

    • Only access was by boat from Duluth

      • Day of sailing

  • Railroad constructed in 1883

  • Two Harbors incorporated in 1888

  • City of Two Harbors formed on Feb.26 1907

  • Railroad is only reason city is here today

    • End of ore route from range

  • Shipping dock in Agate Bay due to the bottom being clay not rock

    • Could dredge and build

  • Had two big cigar factories

    • Over 30,000 cigars a month

    • No longer there

  • 3M started in Two Harbors

    • Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing

    • 1902

    • First product was sandpaper

  • Legend of John Beargrease

    • Mail man

      • 1880s-1890s

      • Two Harbors to Grand Marais route

      • Used row boat and dogsled to carry mail

    • Rumor has it he got into a tussle with a bear when trying to hunt it. Did not end up getting the bear

    • Sled dog race named after him