NOAA National Marine Protected Areas Center
National Marine Sanctuaries
December 2015
Destination MPA:
Thunder Bay
National Marine Sanctuary
The Power of History
History -- it connects us to the past; yet it also has the power to connect us to a special place. The Great Lakes of North America encompass just such a place.
The five interconnected Great Lakes -- or Inland Seas -- possess a rich history that compels its visitors to connect to this extraordinary environment. In this case, the environment is also the world’s largest source of freshwater. Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary (TBNMS), a marine protected area situated in the middle of these Great Lakes, has worked hard to help make that special connection for thousands of people since its designation in October of 2000.
Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary is part of a larger, national system of marine protected areas managed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries and dedicated to protecting special underwater places in the United States. Such places include deep-water canyons off the coast of California, humpback whale breeding grounds along the shores of Massachusetts, and some of the most diverse corals populations in the South Pacific. TBNMS however, was designated to protect a nationally significant collection of historic shipwrecks in Lake Huron. Well preserved by the lake’s cold, fresh water, this collection of historic vessels constitutes a microcosm of the Great Lakes commercial shipping industry spanning the last 200 years. The collection reflects transitions in ship architecture and construction, from wooden schooners to early steel-hulled steamers, as well as several unusual vessel types.
This article is the second in a series on marine protected areas.
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