Three Times And Out For The Meztek

By James Donahue

The wooden schooner barge Meztek got in serious trouble three times on Lake Superior, at the same place off Whitefish Point, during the 31 years that it traveled the Great Lakes. The third event that occurred during a heavy wintery gale on May 15, 1921, sent the vessel to the bottom with its entire crew of six.

The 194-foot-long two mast wooden barge, commanded by Captain K. Pederson of Buffalo, was under tow with the barge Peshtigo behind the steamer Zillah, all laden with salt and bound from Buffalo to Superior, Wisconsin when overtaken by the storm.

A clipping from the Racine Journal said the force of the gale tore both barges away from the steamer. The Peshtigo dropped anchor and rode out the storm and the Zillah, after losing the barges, found shelter at the lee of Whitefish Point. Nothing more was heard of the Meztek.

The steamer Renown reported passing the wreckage of the Miztec three miles off Whitefish the next morning when it reached the locks at Sault Ste Marie. The master said one man was spotted lying on the roof of a cabin. By the time the Renown was turned around to attempt a rescue the man had disappeared.

All six members of the Miztec’s crew were lost.

There seemed to have been a strange hex on the Miztec at that particular place on Lake Superior. The Miztec was severely damaged when it stranded there in 1919. The barge was salvaged and rebuilt. It stranded there the second time in 1920. Then in 1921 the lake swallowed her.

The wreck was located by divers in 1983.