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The Alger Great Lakes State Bottomland Preserve was one of the first two preserves designated under Michigan’s Public Act 184 of 1980. There are now eleven preserves. The Alger Preserve lies in Lake Superior offshore from some of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan’s most spectacular natural scenery: the forests, sandstone cliffs, and enormous sand dunes of Hiawatha National Forest and Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore (Figure 1), a premier tourist attraction area. Containing nearly two dozen known shipwrecks, the Alger Preserve offers some of the best shipwreck diving in the Great Lakes due to its cold, clear water. Unfortunately, that beautiful water may still be ice in May and the diving season is essentially over by Labor Day. This chapter examines how a local entrepreneur, co-author Peter Lindquist, expanded his business from offering only dive charters to coordinating dive charters and glass-bottom boat tours that in 1998 allowed thirteen thousand non-divers to get a close-up view of some of these wrecks, as well as how the local community now views these heretofore largely inaccessible tourist attractions. Additionally, significant accomplishments at other Michigan preserves will be discussed, such as the placement of the state’s first underwater historical marker on the tug Sport (1873– 1920) by the Sanilac Shores Underwater Preserve (Peters and Ashlee, 1992; Stayer and Stayer, 1995:73–80) and the basic training course in underwater archaeological techniques offered through the Straits of Mackinac Preserve (Harrington, 1990). |
