Tour the crew quarters and boathouse at the Maritime Museum at Sleeping Bear Point. Exhibits highlight the U.S. Life-Saving Service and Great Lakes shipping history. Short interpretive talks are given throughout the day. A sand-accessible wheelchair and public restrooms are available.
--from NPS Sleeping Bear 2012 Visitor Guide newspaper
Until we visited this area I don't think I'd ever heard of the U.S. Life-Saving Service, but I ended up learning quite a bit about this predecessor to the U.S. Coast Guard. The approach doesn't look like much, but it gets better, I promise.
This intriguing wheel chair was available to borrow and I can certainly understand why it was invented. A regular chair would get nowhere off-road most places, let alone a very sandy beach.
The boathouse has two ramps leading out to the beach. To facilitate movement over the sand the boats were mounted on wheels so they could be easily moved along tracks until they were at or near the water.
Here is one of the boats inside the shed.
There was quite a bit of equipment inside the boathouse as well as an older volunteer who was explaining much of it to some other guests when we arrived.
This is a Lyle gun. It was designed to fire a heavy weight attached to a very long line towards a stranded ship. The projectile would be fired over a line or pole on the ship to provide support for an apparatus that could be winched out to the ship to facilitate the rescuing of its crewmembers.
The rope was prepared ahead of time on these spindles to facilitate its rapid unwinding once the attached projectile was fired from the gun. This apparatus was turned upside down to release all the rope, but because of the spindles it had been wound around it somewhat kept the shape once it was released from them--enough that it didn't tangle while in flight.
You could climb up next to one of the boats and look down inside it.
After leaving the boathouse we headed over to this building where the actual museum was located. The structure is a Life-Saving Station that later became a Coast Guard Post.
Below you can see maps of various stations around the Great Lakes.
The U.S. Life-Saving Service was merged with the Revenue Cutter Service in 1915 to create the U.S. Coast Guard. This station was similar to the stations on North and South Manitou Islands and was typical of the 60 stations along the Great Lakes and many more on the Atlantic coast. The North Manitou Island station began operation in 1887 and closed in the 1930s, while the South Manitou Island station was built in 1901 and closed in 1958. There was another station at Point Betsie, just north of Frankfort, which began operations in 1876.
--from NPS Sleeping Bear Dunes website, History section
I believe this was a lighthouse light.
We saw a few mannequins showing some of the clothing that was worn.
The breeches buoy was often utilized to rescue people from boats after the Lyle gun had fired the rope out to the boat.
This video explains the drill that staff members went through to keep their skills honed.
The accommodations are a tad spartan.
Amy posed in the replica Pilot House, this room was recreated based on a turn of the century Great Lakes Steamer Pilot House (modified in the 1920s).
The Manby mortar, a predecessor of the Lyle gun, fired a projectile that carried a small rope to a wrecked vessel. In one famous case, a Manby mortar helped save 201 lives from Ayrshire in January 1850.
--from exhibit signage
Once we left the museum building we walked out on the beach for just a bit. It was a cold day, but the sight was still beautiful.
A boardwalk took us most of the way, but it eventually petered out.
The colors were beautiful, blues of water and cloud with sand and green grass...
Next time we'll explore Glen Haven, a town that was built up to serve the steamships plying the Great Lakes.
~Matt
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