SUPERIOR, WI – A ship that’s been part of Superior’s history since 1896 is celebrating a birthday this Sunday and welcoming everyone aboard – though it isn’t sailing anywhere. “It’s called a whaleback because it sits really low in the water, especially when it’s full of cargo,” explained Jordan Stish, manager of Superior Museums, which includes the 130-year-old SS Meteor. “The rounded hull of the ship resembles a whale breaching for air in the water.”
Meteor is celebrating her 130th birthday Sunday. [Roger LeLievre] View gallery images by clicking on the headline.
The following interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Robin Washington: Is the Meteor still a working ship and can it haul taconite in case one of the ore boats needs some help?
Jess McCullough: It is no longer a floating vessel. When the city of Superior bought the boat to be a museum back in 1969, they dug a channel into Barker’s Island and floated the boat into it and filled in the channel with sand and backfill. So the boat is actually sitting on land. It’s no longer seaworthy.
RW: What made the design special and innovative for its day?
Jess Stish: The whaleback design is one of the most unique maritime shipping designs that’s ever really been created. Whaleback ships sit very, very low in the water. If you look at photos of the meteor when she was full of cargo in the middle of the Great Lakes, all you can really see are the smokestacks and the pilot house. The entire cargo hold and the hull are submerged under the water.
JM: The reason that the Meteor is the last one in the world is because most of the whaleback ships were either scrapped or they sunk. Whaleback ships were being run over by other ships because they were so low in the water and other ships could not see them. And so that’s why a lot of the whaleback ships are at the bottom of the Great Lakes today.
RW: That leads to its history and exploits. Where did the Meteor work?
JS: The Meteor went all over the Great Lakes. She stayed in fresh water, though. The furthest she went out was around Buffalo, New York.
JM: She was involved in the war effort when she had her second wreck. She probably would have been scrapped at that time. However, the demand was so great that she was retrofitted for carrying oil.
RW: There were a couple of close calls. What happened?
JM: There was one up on Isle Royale.
RW: Everybody has a close call up there.
JM: Yeah. That was in 1905. There was a snowstorm and she ran aground. That second was the one during the war, in 1942, off the coast of Manistique, Michigan.
RW: You’ve been spiffing it up for the birthday celebration. What does that entail?
JS: The Meteor has come a very long way since she officially opened as a museum in the early 1970s. We’ve had to convert the cargo hold into exhibit space and do the bare bones work of turning a ship into a building. As we prepare for her 130th birthday, we’re just trying to give her a little bit of a refresh to make sure that she looks her best. We’ve also been getting the exhibit space ready with new exhibits, and getting ready to open the SS Meteor Bar, which we’ve been calling Superior’s best kept secret.
RW: Bars in Superior are not quite a secret.
JS: No. But we have lots of fun projects just to make sure that the Meteor looks her best. We’re sharing the history in the way that is the most respectful to the long history of the folks who have worked on the ship and continue to restore her.
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