ICEBOUND!
The Adventures of Young George Sheldon
and the SS Michigan
Winner of a 2009 Michigan State History Award from the Historical
Society of Michigan
ICEBOUND!
is an inspiring illustrated two-part story of perseverance and
bravery that begins in 1885 and concludes in the present day.
Young George Sheldon, a porter aboard the steamship SS
Michigan, is drawn into the adventure of a lifetime when his ship
becomes trapped in the pack-ice in Lake Michigan during the great
winter storm of 1885. Because of George’s heroic efforts, the
captain and all twenty-nine crewmen live to tell the saga of how
after thirty-nine icebound days, their ship is slowly crushed by the
ice and sinks far from Holland, Michigan’s shore.
More than a century later, a determined team of scuba
divers spend three long years searching the depths of Lake Michigan
until they finally find the wreck of the SS Michigan in 275 feet of
water. When they dive down to the shipwreck they discover that it’s
a time capsule with everything just the way George and the crew left
it when they abandoned their ship to make the dangerous walk across
miles of frozen lake.
Regional Studies for Young Readers
ISBN: 978-0-9801750-1-1 11" x 8.5" 48 pages
Free Shipping and signed
by the author
BUCKETS
AND BELTS:
Evolution of the Great Lakes Self-Unloader
Winner of a 2009 Michigan State History Award from the Historical
Society of Michigan
On a
warm summer afternoon in 1927 off South Haven, Michigan, an old
barge began taking on water. Helpless to staunch the flow and
realizing their vessel would inevitably sink, the crew escaped to
the accompanying tug, and watched as their ship plunged beneath Lake
Michigan. Its loss unlamented, its career unheralded, it slumbered
on the sandy bottom in the same obscurity that had shrouded its
earlier work days as a steam freighter sailing the Great Lakes.
However, the vessel’s anonymity ended in 2006 when Michigan
Shipwreck Research Associates located the sunken wreck of the
Hennepin. It is now listed on the National Register of Historic
Places as the world’s first self-unloading vessel. Buckets and Belts: Evolution of the Great Lakes Self-Unloader
traces more than a century of innovative technological advancements
in the conveying of bulk cargos from the Hennepin’s
conversion to a self-unloader in 1902 to today’s mammoth
thousand-foot long lakers.
Enhanced with the most comprehensive collection of self-unloader
images ever published and dozens of underwater photographs, the book
also explores the lives of the people who designed these vessels,
the crewmen who sailed them and the self-unloaders that tragically
went to the bottom, often taking entire crews with them.
The
Lady Elgin
A Report on the 1992 Reconnaissance Survey
Valerie Olson/UASC- 1993
The
Wells Burt
A Report on the Survey of a Virgin Shipwreck
Valerie Olson/UASC-
1991
The
Goshawk Report
A Reconnaissance Survey of the Great Lake's Oldest Schooner
Valerie Olson/UASC - 1993
ARTICLES—BOLD
TITLES LINKED TO PDF
“A Well-Kept Secret…Until Now: First Dives on
the Carl D. Bradley.” Wreck Diver Magazine, Issue 18, 2009: 42-48.
“Mystery Solved.”(The Minch/Davock Controversy) Michigan History Magazine,
July/Aug 2009: 53. “What
No Captain Expects." Lakeland Boating, June 2009: 24-25.
"Buckets and Belts.” Seaway
Review, January 2009: 24-25. "Rogers City
Remembers."
Michigan History Magazine, Jan/Feb 2009: 32-41. “50 Years of Remembering.” Great Laker, Oct-Dec 2008: 69-72. "Seek and Ye Shall Find."
Wreck Diving Magazine, Issue 16, 2008: 68-73. "Whispers From
the Past: Michigan's Underwater Preserves."
Michigan History Magazine, May/June 2008: 67-70 "Mystery Solved!" (HMS Ontario Discovered) The Great
Laker, July-Sept. 2008: 70-73. "Traveling Back in Time to the
Thirty Mile Point Lighthouse."
Great Laker, July-Sept 2008. "Navigating Through History:
Great Lakes Seaway Trail." Great
Laker, April-June 2008: 67-70. "Voyage of Discovery."
Lakeland Boating, March 2008: 26-27. "Telling the
Whole Truth." Michigan History Magazine,
Jan/Feb 2008: 12-19. "The Hennepin."
Great Laker, July-Sept 2007: 77 "The Ordeal of the SS Michigan."
Inland Seas, Fall 2007: 196-205. “A
Hard Death." Wreck
Diving Magazine, Issue 14 2007: 56-63.
"Mining History at Forty Fathoms." Pit and Quarry Magazine, June 2007: 38-49. "A
Deep Look into the Origins of the Bulk Cargo Industry."
Dry Cargo International, June 2007 "Chasing
Shadows: The Search for Flight 2501."
Airways Magazine, May 2007: 50-51 "Icebound
Found!" Michigan
History Magazine, Jan/Feb 2007: 8-14 "Searching
for a Steamer."Michigan History Magazine, July/Aug 2003. Pages 10-17
ICEBOUND!
A
Century of Science: 
T
The
Goshawk Report