Great Lakes Shipwrecks and Survivals

Imagine three million gallons of gasoline being ignited by a high-voltage spark. It took over two days to extinguish the Jupiter, and Ric Mixter was there when it happened. This podcast is exclusive in its content with interviews, inquiry audio and live reports from WSGW and WNEM TV. Hear from the gold-medal rescuers and exclusive access to the Coast Guardsman who attached a safety line to the burning inferno. 60 minutes.

Ric Mixter travels aboard the mega yacht Le Bellot to bring stories of the places they visited. Today it’s a fascinating look at Niagara Falls.

Ric delves into the native legends of Mackinac with a look at the oldest island in the Straits. Includes stories of invasion, Skull Cave, and movies made on the island.

From Milwaukee to the Michigan border, schooners were pushed into each other and onto the shoreline in relentless 60 mile per hour wind. What started out as an 80 degree spring day was transformed into a snowy hurricane that threw hapless crews into the 48 degree water. Historian and master storyteller Ric Mixter shares details on each shipwreck and rescue attempt as well as his family connection to a schooner destroyed near the Calumet River in 1894.

Join Ric as he shares his exclusive interviews with the men who were involved with Great Lakes shipwrecks in November of 1966. From the amazing survival of Dennis Hale to the award winning flight to rescue Nordmeer’s crew, Ric covers all the details. Included is a story on the salvage of the Nordmeer, one of the first freshwater cleanups of its kind.

Titanic may have had a block buster movie made about its loss, but its far from the most famous of shipwrecks. Historian Ric Mixter dives into the myths and ancient stories of early shipwrecks as he searches for what just might be the most famous loss of all time.

November gales are measured in destruction by the “King of Storms”, which destroyed a dozen ships with no eyewitnesses to tell of their loss. Ric Mixter shares two eyewitness accounts of the storm, one through a wheelsman who was the last to see the steamers Price, Regina, Wexford, and Isaac M Scott.

Only two men of 35 survived to tell the story of how the Carl D Bradley ripped down the deck and sank in over 350 feet of water in northern Lake Michigan. Ric Mixter shares the story through their testimony as well as storm details aboard the cutter Sundew, which rescued the men on a life raft off High Island, Michigan in 1958.

Headlines originally read the entire crew of the whaleback Henry Cort were killed when they hit the north break wall in Muskegon. They were thankfully wrong and the captain and engineer provide a detailed look at their final voyage in the thick of a November gale in 1934.

A steamer crashes ashore on one of Michigan’s most remote locations. Several captains and a full crew must find rescue in arctic conditions off Keweenaw Point.