The first commercial ship to sail the Great Lakes promptly vanished on its maiden voyage, a prophetic beginning to the grim and tragic history of navigation on the world's greatest fresh-water seas. The ribs and plates of thousands of vessels - the immigrant ships, brigs, schooners, steel freighters, and even big salt-water tramp ships, built to go anywhere in the world - today lie fathoms deep, victims of fierce storms, collisions, fires, shoals, and the myriad hazards of navigation. Here, too, are the ghosts of the men who sailed them, tramping the decks of lost ships. It is typical of the sailor's lot, too, that while they died as heroically as their brethren on salt water, many of them perished unknown and unheralded.Written by a newspaperman who had spent years collecting and documenting the history of lakeships and the men who sail them, Great Stories of the Great Lakes brings to light the heroism, tragedy, and humor, largely overlooked by history, that was and is part and parcel of the evolution of the great inland oceans. These are true stories of the ships and men who played their parts in eras when the fresh-water ships were growing from tiny brigantines to the huge vessels of today, some of them among the largest in the American and Canadian merchant fleets. These stories make for fascinating, exciting reading.