Friends of Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary Offers Incentives to “Explore Your Sanctuary, Virtually!” Alpena, Mich. – The Friends of Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary (FTBNMS) is in the giving spirit and offering a daily prize for those who participate in “Explore Your Sanctuary, Virtually!” an online treasure hunt to explore the sanctuary’s new website. [...]
Due to COVID-19, 2021 Thunder Bay Maritime Festival and Cardboard Boat Regatta Canceled Due to the lead time needed for fundraising and planning, the Thunder Bay Maritime Festival and Cardboard Boat Regatta will not be held on July 4, 2021. “We hope everyone still gets out and safely enjoys our sanctuary this summer --and count [...]
Due to COVID-19, 2021 Thunder Bay Maritime Festival and Cardboard Boat Regatta Canceled Due to the lead time needed for fundraising and planning, the Thunder Bay Maritime Festival and Cardboard Boat Regatta will not be held on July 4, 2021. “We hope everyone still gets out and safely enjoys our sanctuary this summer –and count [...]
Presented by State of Michigan Maritime Archaeologist Wayne Lusardi, he will highlight an assortment of objects, both human-made and natural, that have fallen from space into the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes have served as a training ground throughout the history of aviation. Nineteenth-century balloon ascensions, early military and civilian aircraft development, [...]
Presented by LTJG Hunter Brendel Lieutenant (junior grade) Hunter Brendel will speak about the NOAA Commissioned Officer Corps, the nation’s smallest uniformed service comprised of 321 officers. NOAA Corps operates NOAA’s fleet of 16 ships and nine aircraft that conduct scientific operations throughout the United States and internationally. Officers also take on [...]
Great Lakes, Great Films Every year, the Friends of Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary bring the world of cinema to Alpena! For five days in January, northeast Michigan is treated to some of the most impressive ocean and Great Lakes films from around the world. Film screenings are complemented by social events, educational activities, and opportunities [...]
ALPENA, MICH --The Thunder Bay International Film Festival kicks off the 20th anniversary year celebrating the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary’s (TBNMS) federal designation. TBNMS was officially designated in 2000 as the first freshwater marine sanctuary of the 14 nationally designated underwater parks. While more than 1,000 students from communities along the sanctuary’s shoreline are [...]
Come to the sanctuary’s latest in the Sanctuary Cinema Series! November 22, 1912: The schooner Rouse Simmons departs upper Michigan ferrying 5,000 Christmas trees to Chicago. The ship disappears, and for 60 years there’s no trace of it. In 1971 a scuba diver discovers the legendary, lost “Christmas Tree Ship.” (2013, 50 minutes, no rating) [...]
Great Lakes Maritime Historian Patrick Labadie describes the introduction and subsequent development of the iconic Great Lakes vessels, and their effect on the Midwest. The commerce of the American Midwest has always been closely linked with the efficiency of Great Lakes transportation. Eighteenth-century fur trade, 19th century agriculture, lumbering and mining were all dependent upon [...]
The desolate Lake Superior shoreline between Whitefish Point in Michigan's Eastern Upper Peninsula and the area of Grand Marais, MI, is littered with a multitude of shipwrecks. Some occurred as early as the 1816 wreck of the schooner Invincible, while newer, larger wrecks are deep within the shipping lanes. The 729' SS Edmund Fitzgerald is [...]
