Harbour

Whitefish Point State Dock

Name: Whitefish Point State Dock
Address: Whitefish Point, US
Telephone: +19064923415

Whitefish Point, United StatesLake Superior

Type: Harbour

Free state dock at the tip of Whitefish Point, on the south shore of Lake Superior in Michigan, about 40 miles north-west of Sault Ste. Marie.

Guide

Approach and anchoring

The point shelters Whitefish Bay, but the surrounding waters are among the most dangerous on Lake Superior, with more wrecks recorded here than anywhere else on the lake. Make for the dock in settled weather and keep clear of shoals off the point.

Practical

No fees and no attendant. Berths are shared with Native American commercial fishing boats working daily and with the shipwreck research vessel David Boyd, which keeps the dock as its base. Few visitor facilities.

Ashore

Whitefish Point Lighthouse stands beside the dock and is the oldest continuously operated light on Lake Superior. The Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum, telling the story of the Edmund Fitzgerald lost in 1975, is a short walk away. A sand beach runs along the point.

History

The waters off Whitefish Point have wrecked so many vessels that the area is called the graveyard of the Great Lakes. The Edmund Fitzgerald foundered roughly 17 miles offshore in November 1975 with all 29 crew lost.