He Went Down with His Ship: Captain Burke and the Steamer Arlington

Join the Marquette Maritime Museum for this exciting new shipwreck discovery at our March Maritime History on Tap.

In the summer of 2023, a group of local shipwreck hunters, including Marquette Maritime Museum board member Dan Fountain, set out on Lake Superior in search of the famous “ghost ship” of the Great Lakes, the steamer Bannockburn. They succeeded in finding an intact steel steamer in deep water near the middle of the lake and reached out to the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society (GLSHS) for help in identifying a potential wreck. The GLSHS’s David Boyd towed a Marine Sonic Technology side-scan sonar over the anomaly and the wreck revealed its identity as the Arlington, sunk in a storm in 1940. The wreck has tales to tell of rescue by a nearby freighter, the first trip on the lake for two young deckhands, and the veteran captain who didn’t (or couldn’t?) abandon ship and went down to a watery grave.

$5 suggested donation at the door. Call 906-226-2006 for more information