Abundant Waters Digital Exhibit Now Online

by Sara Daniels

3D view of the Clarke's "Fur, Freighters, Fuels" section of the exhibit

The Clarke Historical Library officially opened its most recent exhibit,

Sunset at CMU Biological Station,
Beaver Island

Abundant Waters: Our Most Precious Resource on February 22, 2022. Now, we are proudly presenting the exhibit's digital companion. Exploring the state's cultural, environmental, political, and economic history through its 3,200 miles of freshwater coastline and 76,000 miles of rivers, this website offers new ways to approach the exhibit's driving question: how often do we actually think about our relationship with Michigan's most precious resource? 

Home to over 20% of the world's surface freshwater supply, Michigan is a state surrounded by, defined by, and embroiled in issues of water. The digital exhibit of Abundant Waters delves into the depths of Michigan's past in order to uncover our lasting connections with water and reveal how our future and the future of Michigan’s lakes and rivers are one in the same.

The digital exhibit is a culmination of months of research and community efforts. With contributions from WCMU Public Media, CMU professors and students, and members of the Saginaw Chippewa Tribal Conservation Community, the exhibit approaches Michigan's waterways through a multitude of perspectives. It provides an engaging and multidimensional platform on which to experience for yourself Michigan's greatest resource—water. From a 3D perspective of the Clarke’s physical Abundant Waters exhibit to a series of videos exploring the conservation of Michigan’s waters, the digital exhibit contains a number of fresh features and new approaches to exploring this topic and showcasing the many ways humans have interacted with and been affected by water.

Ernest Hemingway canoeing in northern Michigan

Take, for instance, one of Michigan's flashier roles as a rum-running capital, with 75% of the alcohol smuggled into the United States during Prohibition passing through one of Michigan's water borders with Canada. Or consider Michigan's status as the “Arsenal of Democracy” during World War II—it went beyond building bombers, with one of Michigan’s own Chris-Craft ships among the first to make landfall in Normandy on D-Day.

Michigan's waters have occupied countless other roles in personal, state, and national histories, which the Clarke explores in its digital exhibit. Its Great Lakes have been a 

The Edmund Fitzgerald

graveyard to hundreds of ships; its northern freshwater springs have been touted as miracle healers. Its ports and straits have acted as home to both war and industry, while its waters hold a sacred, life-giving status for Indigenous communities. 

To the famous American novelist Ernest Hemingway, Michigan was "a great place to laze around and swim and fish when you want to. And the best place in the world to do nothing." To others, it’s the best place in the world to do something—for the Soo Locks, that’s 80 million tons of commodities navigating the St. Mary’s falls each year. For each of the hundreds of millions of others to come in contact with Michigan, its waters represent something unique and personal.

Abundant Waters taps into this complex tapestry, illuminating the webs of connection flowing through Michigan's waterways and tying together facets of history and human experience. The exhibit aims to help the public reflect on our complex and meaningful relationships with water and to help us understand how water connects us all across time and space. 

Canoe manifest bound for Drummond Island c. 1818

Ultimately, Abundant Waters explores the lakes and rivers of Michigan as cultural, spiritual, and commercial epicenters, ones that define and sustain the region physically, ecologically, and economically. It imagines water in its many forms—mover of industry, mode of exploration, borderlands between/hubs within nations and peoples, and carrier of story—and in its ultimate form, as the veins that carry the lives of not just Michiganders, but people everywhere. Visit the digital exhibit today, with its new features and extended access to photographs and primary documents, to discover for yourself how we see ourselves—and each other—in Michigan's great waters.

The Abundant Waters exhibit is funded, in part, by an award from the American Library Association as part of the ALA’s American Rescue Plan: Humanities Grants for Libraries program.

3D view of the Clarke's "Disasters" section of the exhibit

Abundant Waters: Our Most Precious Resource

 By Gillian Macdonald 

Entrance to the Clarke Historical Library

Among a host of other exciting things happening in 2022, the Clarke Historical Library’s new exhibit explores a topic close to the heart of every Michigander…water and its value to our society. Abundant Waters: Our Most Precious Resource tackles an important question: how often do we actually think about our relationships with this most precious resource? With water at the forefront of our minds in today’s climate, the abundance of freshwater in the Great Lakes State is an aspect of our lives that we often take for granted. The Clarke Historical Library’s exhibit explores the many ways that abundant freshwater defines Michigan through five themes—politics, recreation, commerce, disasters, and the spirit nurturing aspect of water. Highlights include the construction of the Mackinac Bridge, canoe manifests from the fur trade, the pollution of the Pine River watershed and the ongoing clean-up, and Hemingway family scrapbooks showing a young Ernest Hemingway and his family enjoying Walloon Lake and the Little Traverse Bay region.

"Political Waves" Wall

Water is arguably Michigan’s defining feature. The Great Lakes State is surrounded by and encompassed in an abundance of water, freshwater to be exact. In Michigan, you are never more than six miles from a lake, stream, or waterway. Michigan has more than 11,000 inland lakes, 76,000 miles of rivers, 6.5 million acres of wetlands, and more than 3,200 miles of freshwater coastline. For thousands of years, the Great Lakes—and Michigan’s water in general—have provided people with freshwater for survival, spiritual rejuvenation, a means of travel, and a place to have fun. In the last few decades, conservationism has reinforced the importance of these natural wonders. Abundant freshwater is at the root of why many choose to live, work, and play in the Great Lakes State. Explore the relationships that connect us to these bodies of water through recreation, politics, commerce and transport, our defining geography, early tribal histories, nurturing water springs, and through environmental stressors.

In researching and designing the exhibit, we had to first decide on a mission statement and then themes that would best illustrate this. For all intents and purposes, this is the hardest part. What does this exhibit need to project and what is the goal? The Clarke’s voluminous collections actually answered this question for us. The sheer abundance of water and activity connected to the water found in the books and manuscript collections illustrated that all aspects of life in Michigan have a relationship with the water. Although most of us have a general awareness of the water around us—many would even proclaim a deep love for the Great Lakes State’s water—how often do we truly contemplate our relationships with it? 

Installation of Recreation wall panels

Our ideas and imaginations came to life thanks to the capable hands of John Metcalf of Good Design Group. His striking designs help tell the stories of our relationships with water. I would like to thank not only Bryan Whitledge, Kathy Irwin, and Marian Maytn for their editorial help and suggestions, but also Colleen Green, Director of the Office of Native American Programs & Student Transition Enrichment Program, for her guidance, and members of the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe for their participation. The production of the exhibit wouldn’t be possible without Rebecca Zeiss, the CMU Sign Shop, CMU Facilities Management, and everyone in between. Installation of the exhibit was made all the more enjoyable and efficient with the helping hands of our capable student employees, Camille Dixson, Nova Moore, David Wright, Maggie Gipe, and Ben Ackley. 

We officially opened the 2022 exhibition on February 22. As part of the Speaker Series, Jim Diana retired director of the Michigan Sea Grant, kicked off the exhibit with a discussion about the effectiveness of Great Lakes environmental regulations in protecting our incredible ecosystem. 

Intrigued? Please come and visit us! Explore how we are connected to water through recreation, politics, commerce and transport, our defining geography, early tribal histories, nurturing water springs, and environmental stressors.

Installation of the floor graphic

In true Clarke fashion, we have also started construction on our digital exhibition. This project is being designed and created as a complementary counterpart to our physical exhibition at the Clarke Historical Library at Central Michigan University. Under construction since February 2022, the digital exhibit is a platform dedicated to Michigander’s relationship with their water resources. One particularly important theme we are exploring is the future of Michigan’s water. Crowd-sourced videos and audio answers to these important questions can be found on our exhibit website. 

Participants responded to one or more of these questions:

1. How can we protect our most precious natural resource?

2. Why is protecting Michigan’s freshwater so important?

3. What does it mean to be a good steward of the water?

4. What does the future hold for the Great Lakes & water in Michigan?

5. What are you doing to protect the water? Should we be doing more?

6. How do you see our policymakers helping to preserve this resource?

Digital Exhibit

If you would like to participate in our digital exhibit by responding to one or more of these questions, please get in contact with us at: clarke@cmich.edu. Check back for news about the public launch of our Abundant Waters digital exhibit in the coming weeks.

The Abundant Waters exhibit is funded, in part, by an award from the American Library Association as part of the ALA’s American Rescue Plan: Humanities Grants for Libraries program.

 

 

Michelle Briggs Opens the Clarke's New Exhibit

By Frank Boles

On February 23, 2017 the Clarke Library opened its newest exhibit, “As Remote as the Moon: The Soo Locks in Photos” with a presentation by Michelle Briggs, the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Park Ranger responsible for operating the USACE Visitor Center at the Soo. Briggs talk told the story of the canal through the calendar year, illustrated by a spectacular array of photographs largely taken by herself.

Although tourists flock to the Soo to see the locks, Briggs made clear the purpose of the locks, and the reason the USACE has been charged to operate and maintain them, has nothing to do with tourism. The Corps graciously works to educate and entertain the many visitors who come to see the locks, but the Soo Locks exist to support the American economy. Eighty million tons of cargo moves through the locks each year. Virtually all of the iron ore mined in America still comes from the Lake Superior region, and about 80 percent of that ore reaches steel mills by boat. Every one of those boats passes through the Soo Locks. Without the Soo Locks, America’s industry would simply stop because it lacked the necessary raw material.

Much of Briggs’ presentation focused on the work done by the USACE when tourists are few and far between – during the winter. The Soo Locks close in mid-January and reopen in March. During that time, the locks are drained, making access easy to a variety of structures that are normally submerged and difficult to maintain or repair. Everything, however, works on a scale in which parts often weigh tons and are moved by huge cranes. The age of the locks also complicates upkeep and repairs. The parts often have to be custom built onsite because their size and unique character is such that there is no manufacturer making or selling such a thing. Ace is not the place where the Corps can find much of what it needs for work in the locks.

During the winter at the Soo, “easy” work is a relative term. While the water inside the locks and their component tunnels is largely gone, (leaking gates are a persistent problem) rapid formation of ice, snow, cold weather, and other weather related issues make daily work challenging. Work crews approach their tasks with a “get ‘r done” philosophy. Photos of workers “warming” material with propane torches, so that the items can be drilled or otherwise manipulated, made it clear just what a challenge it is getting done even the simplest tasks during February at the Soo.

The locks open for boats every year at midnight, March 25. The Observation Platform, normally closed in the cold weather months, is opened that evening so the most serious lock fans can see the event. In the best of conditions the “first boat” arrives a few hours early, ties up, and waits for the clock to strike midnight. Local officials at the Soo invariably make much of the first passage of the year, which one once compared to the opening of baseball season in Detroit. Officials board the docked ship. Gifts are presented. The captain often offers a boat tour. Television crews get wonderful footage. And everyone enjoys the wait until the lock gate swings open at midnight and the spectators in the Observation Platform get to add another “first passage” to their list.

But when the weather is bad, and the first boat arrives late, perhaps several days after the official opening of the locks, the ship’s captain keeps ceremony to a minimum. In the 20 minutes or so it normally takes for the boat to lock through, the captain will usually come off the ship, accept whatever “swag” is being given to the first ship of the season, say something nice, but short, to the waiting tv crew, and then get back on the boat to be ready to move out as soon as the far lock gate opens. The captain’s job that day is to keep the boat moving, not make nice with the local community.

Passage through the locks in early spring or late fall, however, often takes more than the “average” 20 minutes. Ice is the problem. The largest lock, the Poe, is 110 feet wide, while the largest freighters are 105 feet wide. Briggs photographs made it clear just how narrow five feet of water is, when it is the only thing between a 105 foot wide boat and a 110 foot wide fall. If ice accumulates along the sides of the lock, or is pushed in front of the boat as it enters the lock and creates an obstacle such that the far lock gate cannot swing properly, locking through becomes impossible.

Coast Guard icebreakers, and a specially equipped USACE tugboat that can scrape ice off the sides of the lock, have to break the ice, which is then “flushed” from the lock. If the ice extends below the reach of the floating icebreakers and tug, special tools attached to a ship-mounted crane are dragged along the side of the lock to break up the submerged ice, which also has to be “flushed.” These complications can make what in the summer is a quick 20 minute passage into an event taking many hours, and adding a great deal of frustration to the impatient captain’s day.

Briggs fascinating and well-illustrated presentation made clear the continuing importance of the Soo Locks to the United States economy, the challenges faced by the USACE in operating and maintaining the locks, and the dedication and ingenuity shown by the Corps military and civilian workers in carrying out their important task. Briggs presentation also explained why about 400,000 people visit the Soo Locks annually, even though United States Senator Henry Clay, when asked to fund construction of a lock at the Soo in the early nineteenth century, voted against the idea, declaring that there was no need to spend federal dollars at a place as remote as the moon.

The Gems of Lake Superior

By Frank Boles

On February 27, Jack Deo presented a stereo-optic presentation on B.F. Childs 1870 photographic tour of Lake Superior, which was published on stereo-optic cards as “The Gems of Lake Superior.” Deo is the proprietor of the Superior View Gallery in Marquette. Childs loaded a small sailboat with a large format glass plate negative camera, as well as all of the necessary plates, and set sail with companion and a Native American guide to circle Lake Superior. The voyage, as well as supplemental work done later, resulted in the publication of more than 500 stereo-optic cards. The cards offered the purchaser amazing detail, considerable artistic merit, and an important visual record of the lake and the people who lived around it.


Deo’s presentation also featured one of the light proof boxes Childs took with him to store his undeveloped negatives, an important piece of equipment because it allowed him to leave the chemicals needed for developing back at the studio, rather than have to carry them along with him and do developing in the field. Deo also showed a number of antique stereo-optic cameras, and discussed the photographers who documented the Upper Peninsula in the nineteenth century, and an appreciation of just how accomplished those photographers were.

But the highlight of the presentation was less the history of the photos and the photographers and more the images themselves. Stunning in their clarity and artistry they gave a vivid sense of a time past. What was of particular interest was that Childs photographed not only scenery, a staple of many photographers, but also the people living around the lake. His images of Native Americans living near Sault Ste. Marie, for example, form one of the most complete visual records available of their appearance, living conditions, and fishing practices. Similarly, images taken inside mines of miners at work give us today pictures of otherwise largely unrecorded mining activity.

At the reception that followed the presentation, a number of Childs original cards that are in the Clarke Library’s holdings, as well as a vintage stereo-optic viewer, were available for individuals to use and truly experience the images as they had been seen almost 150 years ago.





It was an educational evening, with the added benefit of being a whole lot of fun.

BF Child's original negative case, ca. 1870, courtesy of Jack Deo

Clarke Spring Speaker Series

The Clarke Historical Library's upcoming speaker series has been announced. All of our presentations are free and open to the public. The programs begin at 7:00 pm in the Park Library Auditorium with a reception immediately following in the Clarke Historical Library. If you have questions or need accommodations, please contact us at 989-774-3352 or clarke@cmich.edu.

We are looking forward to an exciting lineup that includes:

Thursday, February 23
Exhibit Opening: The Soo Locks

​Michelle Briggs, Director of the United States Army Corps of Engineers Soo Locks Visitor Center and award-winning photographer, will discuss the Locks.​​

Monday, February 27​
Jack Deo: The Gems of Lake Superior: Brainard Freemont Child’s 3D Voyage in 1870 Lake Superior Views

B.F. Childs was one of the most prolific photographers of the Lake Superior region. Photographer and collector Jack Deo will travel back in time to present a 3D slide show of historic Lake Superior scenes including Native Americans, copper and iron mining camps and towns, lake transportation, and the beautiful scenery. 3D glasses will be provided.

Thursday, March 16​
Sally Howell​: The History of Islam in Detroit

Author of Old Islam in Detroit: Rediscovering the Muslim-American Past (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014)​ to speak about her research.

Monday, March 20
Readings from African Fairy Tales ​

This program is presented in partnership with the African Humanitarian Educational Research Organization (AHERO), a Central Michigan University student organization.

Sunday, April 2 
Commemoration of U.S Entry into World War I​ ​

On April 2, 1917, Woodrow Wilson asked Congress to declare war on Germany. This remembrance is presented in cooperation with Central Michigan University’s Center for International Ethics.

Historic Soo Locks Construction Photos Now On-Line

by Bryan Whitledge

Historians, students, hobbyist researchers and general fans of the Soo Locks and Great Lakes shipping now have access to some of the best primary source images known to exist. Today, the Clarke Historical Library is pleased to announce the availability of over 1,700 images of the construction of the Soo Locks dating from circa 1885 to 1941. Through a freely accessible, keyword-searchable database, anyone in the world can now view digital copies of images that document over 50 years of construction, testing, and operation of a great engineering feat that has been a boon to the economy of the Great Lakes states and America. To access this database, visit http://clarke.cmich.edu/soolocks.

The images, which were digitized from the original glass photographic plates, show various stages of the construction of the now-closed Third (Davis) and Fourth (Sabin) Locks. These stages include surveying the St. Marys River above, at, and below the Locks, excavation of earth to form the Locks, construction of the walls that form the lock chambers, installation of mechanical devices and the lock gates, ships passing through operational Locks, and much more...even the extent of damage of the occasional accident!

Before being scanned and digitally preserved, the images were housed at the US Army Corps of Engineers Soo Area Office in Sault Ste. Marie. Since being digitized, the original glass plates have been transferred to the National Archives and Records Administration, Still Pictures Unit in College Park, Maryland. For more information about the digital images or to request high-resolution copies of any particular image(s), please contact Clarke (clarke@cmich.edu or 989-774-3864)

Children's Lighthouse Art, Poetry, and Thank You Cards

by Marian Matyn

I'm currently processing the miscellaneous papers of Richard L. "Dick" Moehl. Moehl founded and led the Great Lakes Lighthouse Keepers Association (GLLKA) and worked with related groups to help preserve and repair Michigan lighthouses and document their history. He actively engaged troops of Boy Scouts and some Girl Scouts from several counties to help cleanup and repair lighthouses and their grounds. He also worked in conjunction with other related groups to improve Michigan tourism and preservation of historic and natural sites including helping develop the Sweetwater Trail of Michigan and the Mackinaw area to promote tourism, notably concerning the preservation of the Icebreaker Mackinaw.

Through Moehl, the Clarke already has the Organizational Records of GLLKA, 1984-2007, documenting the restoration of the St. Helena and Round Island lighthouses, complete runs of GLLKA's two publications, the Beacon and the Great Lakes Cruiser, as well as their other historic and educational publications and lighthouse calendars, and the photographic files used to generate the images in Great Lakes Cruiser. These collections can be found in Centra and their Google-searchable finding aids are available at http://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/clarke/.

In Moehl's collection, there are lots of images of scouts working on lighthouses. Besides his work with scouts, lighthouses, and various organizations concerned with preserving lighthouses, nature, and promoting Michigan tourism, Dick traveled and talked with many groups of school children to promote interest in and education about lighthouses. He was apparently an inspiring speaker. The kids loved him. Below are some images of the thank yous and poems his presentations inspired the children to create.

Thank you cards by 5th graders, Sterling Heights, undated
(above and below)

Oversized lighthouse art of Kevin Van Allen

Lighthouse poetry anthologies, 4th grade students,
Hugger Elementary (Rocherster, Mich.), undated

A scary poem from the anthologies by Matt Glaser

Poem by "Kevin," from an anthology entitled Thank You, Captain!,
unidentified school, undated

Summer Presentations

by Frank Boles

This summer, the Clarke Library sponsored two very different and both very interesting talks. The first, on June 20, was given by Al Declercq, a professional sail-maker and sailboat racer who told the story of Bernida, the first ship to win the Port Huron to Mackinac Island race. The second presentation, given July 14 by Professor Nancy Auer, shared with the audience the fascinating story of one of the Great Lakes natural treasures: the lake sturgeon.

Bernida was built in 1921 to race on salt water. It was originally named Rueida III. In 1925, the ship was purchased by Russ Pouliot, given his wife’s maiden name, Bernida, and shipped on a flatbed railroad car to the Great Lakes. Bernida found a new home at Detroit’s Bayview Yacht Club. Pouliot liked to race, and when the first Port Huron to Mackinac sailboat race was announced in 1925, he planned to be in it. Twelve boats sailed in the inaugural race. Bernida led the fleet upon the arrival at Mackinac Island. Two years later, sailed by a new owner, Bernida again won the Port Huron to Mackinac race.

Ships like the Bernida are specialized, expensive, and not really built for day cruising or family outings. The vessel went through many owners and eventually fell on hard times. In 2000, the badly decayed boat was discovered at The Old Junk Shoppe (you can’t make up names like that!) in Pentwater, Michigan. A group of enthusiasts saw something other than a deteriorating boat never likely to sail again. They saw a legacy that could be restored, and set about doing just that.

With the financial help of a generous donor, in 2004, the Mackinac Island Boating Heritage Association bought the ship for $10,000. In 2008, restoration began. The Foundation was perpetually short of money, but eventually an estimated $220,000 was spent on the project, much of it in kind donations of material and approximately 4,000 hours of labor.

Al Declercq was long aware of the project. He served as an unpaid consultant and also made a gift-in-kind of sails for the ship. In 2010, he was surprised to learn that the ship was for sale, listed on Ebay for $10,000. Restoring an old racing boat may be a first class historic endeavor, but it is anything but a first class financial investment. Consider it charity work. Al purchased the ship, and brought it back to Detroit’s Bayview Yacht Club. Even more work went into the boat, this time volunteered by Mr. Declercq and his friends. Finally, in 2012, he entered it into the Port Huron to Mackinac race. Three fathers, including Mr. Declercq, and their sons, crewed the vessel.

The boat had a tough go of it. The weather turned nasty and part of the mast broke. But the crew improvised a fix and kept in the race. The deck cracked and for awhile there was concern that the stern might literally break off. But after deploying smaller sails the stress on the hull lessened, the cracks became manageable, and the ship pressed on toward Mackinac.

Despite the bad weather, in one respect nature was kind. Bernida sails best in a particular kind of wind. With the right breeze in its sails, Bernida remains a very fast boat. That hoped-for wind was blowing almost continuously throughout the race. When it finally entered the Island’s harbor, a cannon was fired – the traditional salute given to the first ship across the finish line. Eighty-seven years after the boat had won the first Port Huron to Mackinac Race, the battered old ship had done it again.

In 2013, Mr. Declercq donated the vessel to the Michigan Maritime Museum in South Haven, Michigan. The gift did have one string attached — if he wishes, Al can sail the ship one more time to compete in the Port Huron to Mackinac race. Mr. Declercq is uncertain if he will do it, but the idea of the boat which won the first Port Huron to Mackinac race running in the 100th competition in 2025 is one he can’t quite put aside.

The story of the Bernida is told in a charming children’s book, Bernida: A Michigan Sailing Legend, written by Al Declercq and Tom Ervin, with Gloria Whelan (Ann Arbor: Sleeping Bear Press, 2014). An adult version of the story, Bernida: A True Story That Can’t Be True, also written by Mr. Declercq and Mr. Ervin, was self-published by the authors in 2012.

Professor Nancy Auer is one of the nation’s leading experts on the Great Lakes sturgeon. Her talk centered on efforts to ensure that this struggling fish continues to survive in the Great Lakes.

Sturgeon are relics of prehistoric times. They are closely related, and similar in size and shape, to sharks. Unlike sharks, however, they lack teeth. Sturgeon use a vacuum-like mouth to suck up organic material from lake and river bottoms. The lake sturgeon (Acipenser fulvescens) is long lived and large sized. A lake sturgeon can live for 150 years and can grow over seven feet in length. The largest recorded sturgeon, found in Lake Superior in 1922, weighed 310 pounds. Sturgeon weighing 100 to 150 pounds are today still fairly common.

The sturgeon, however, has often been considered a “nuisance species” and as such has suffered from neglect and unintended habitat destruction. Most troublesome to sturgeon are the many small hydro-electric power dams placed on Great Lakes rivers in the early years of the twentieth century. The dams had two effects. Sturgeon spawn inland in rivers and lakes and are very specific about their spawning territory. Prof. Auer made the point by telling the story of the sturgeon she has caught repeatedly when doing studies in the same river, in the same location, and on the same date. The dams created impenetrable barriers keeping the fish from their spawning grounds.

The way hydro-electric dams were operated also created problems. Because these small dams wanted to ensure sufficient water for power generation when it was most needed, it became customary to close the dam and stop all water flow in the river during periods when electric demand was less. This usually occurred during the evening hours. Although the practice guaranteed a good flow of water the next morning to make electricity, the impact on the fish population, including sturgeon, of literally turning the river off at 9:00 at night was devastating.

Professor Auer was one of the first biologists to participate in longitudinal studies of lake sturgeon. She and other pioneers began tagging sturgeon so that their movements could be studied. Her first efforts, however, were a little less organized than today’s radio-transmitting micro-chips that are implanted into the animal’s skin. Her first small grant to tag sturgeon involved external tags attached to the fish. As she planned for her first tagging experiments, Professor Auer ran into a problem that can occur when nature and bureaucracies come into contact. The money she had been given to buy the tags had not appeared when the fish began to swim upstream.

Being resourceful, Professor Auer made a trip to a local cattle coop and obtained a supply of the small plastic tags used to identify cows. The tags are relatively tough, designed to be inserted through the animal’s flesh, and include the name and contact information of the cow’s owner. All that said, using cattle tags to identify sturgeon led to some very strange phone calls. She still remembers the day a commercial fisherman from Munising called her to report he had pulled up one of the tags in his net and commented, “I don’t know what you do lady, but I’m pretty sure you don’t have any cows down there.”

Although Great Lakes sturgeon today number only about one percent of their historic population size, they are not legally an endangered species. Fishing for sturgeon, however, is usually prohibited and if one is accidentally caught legally, it is to be returned to the water. With the help of people like Nancy Auer, these great fish will hopefully continue to inhabit the Great Lakes.

To learn more about sturgeon, read The Great Lake Sturgeon edited by Nancy Auer and Dave Dempsey (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2013)

Nancy Auer to Speak about the Great Lakes Sturgeon

On Tuesday, July 14, Nancy Auer, co-editor of The Great Lake Sturgeon, will speak about the book. The collected volume captures many aspects of the remarkable Great Lakes sturgeon, from the mythical to the critically real. Lake sturgeon is sacred to some, impressive to many, and endangered in the Great Lakes. A fish whose ancestry reaches back millions of years and that can live over a century and grow to six feet or more, the Great Lakes lake sturgeon was once considered useless, and then overfished nearly to extinction.

A professor at Michigan Technological University with a doctorate in biological sciences, Nancy Auer has dedicated much of her career to the study and restoration of the lake sturgeon. She is one of the region's leading experts on the fish.

This presentation will be held in the Park Library Auditorium beginning at 7:00 pm. It is free and open to the public. An author's reception in the Clarke Historical Library will follow the presentation.

Clarke Historical Map Database Now Available

Detailed view of a John Farmer map
in the Clarke's Historical Maps Database

The Clarke Historical Library has a wealth of historical maps from Michigan, the Great Lakes, and beyond. Maps of areas as small as a single township to the entirety of the world can be found at the Library.

Clarke's Historical Maps Database showing thumbnail
images and brief descriptions for each map

Recently, staff of the Clarke and the CMU Libraries systems staff, particularly student assistant Lindsay Gabriel in the Clarke and Eric Cronstrom in systems, created a searchable database that allows any researcher anywhere in the world to find a brief description, low-resolution image, and citation to a bibliography for maps in our holdings.

Currently, information and images are available for 340 maps in the William Jenks Collection and five additional maps of the African continent from the Wilbert Wright Collection of Africana and Afro-Americana. As more maps are inventoried and images are taken of them, the information will be added to the database. 

Using the database is simple. Researchers can browse through all of the maps or use the search bar to search for a word (e.g. Detroit) or a simple term (e.g. Lake Huron) to find all of the maps in our holdings that match those search terms. When possible, we have linked the citations to bibliographies to the digital editions of those bibliographies so researchers can have access to even more information.

To view the map database, click on this link or look for "Historical Maps" in the "Resources" dropdown on the Clarke Historical Library webpage. We look forward to the expansion of this database and welcome any comments about edits or changes that need to be made.