The month `most dreaded' hurled the `Mataafa blow' at the Twin Ports

The 1907 creation of the protected anchorage basin inside the Duluth-Superior harbor was tacit recognition by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that Lake Superior could prove a dangerous place to be. At the turn of the 20th century, an estimated 50,000 sailors made a living on the boats. Many lived in Duluth and Superior, and their families routinely held their breath when the telegraph wires relayed news of vessels lost to storms on the big lake.

Sometimes Twin Ports residents became eyewitnesses to the Lake's dangers, as they did on June 7, 1902, when the Pittsburgh Steamship Comp-any's Thomas Wilson sank off Eighth Avenue East. The 308-foot steel whaleback often loaded iron ore at the harbor for the steel mills down the lakes. As the Wilson sailed outbound through the Duluth Ship Canal, the George G. Hadley of Toledo was inbound. The 308-foot wooden coal freighter sliced into the Wilson, cutting her in two. Crewman swam through frigid waters for the Hadley, which was less than 50 yards away. The Wilson sank in three minutes, taking nine of its 20 crewman. The Wilson tragedy had happened inexplicably on a calm day.

Lake Superior Marine Museum Association Archives; Lake Superior Maritime Collection at the University of Wisconsin Superior

The next chapter in Duluth-Superior's sometimes tempestuous relationship with Lake Superior came in the teeth of one of the fiercest gales on the Upper Great Lakes in the 20th century. The "Mataafa blow" of November 27-29, 1905, was given its name to commemorate the sinking of the steel bulk freighter Mataafa just off the newly constructed piers of the Duluth Ship Canal. Nine crew members froze to death within plain sight of thousands of Duluth residents, all helpless to do anything to avert the tragedy.

Historian Fred Landon once wrote that "of all months in the year, [November] is the most dreaded by lake sailors who can recall many a ship and its men that went out on a late trip — perhaps the expected last trip — and lost out to the wild storms and the treacherous seas that this month can bring." Following a vicious blow during November 23-25, 1905, skippers cautiously edged into Lake Superior to complete what would likely be the last trip of the season.

Conventional wisdom held that a November storm would be succeeded by three to seven days of calm weather as a high pressure area drifted east across the lakes. One vessel leaving port on November 27 was the Mataafa. Built in Cleveland for the Minnesota Steamship company, the 430-foot steel bulk freighter had later become one of the 12 modern vessels in U.S. Steel's Pittsburgh Steamship subsidiary. With Captain R.H. Humble in command, the Mataafa left port just after 4 p.m.

At about 7 p.m., a nor'easter slammed across the Twin Ports. By early morning, gusts over 80 miles an hour were recorded at Duluth. In the harbor, several vessels grounded when their anchors wouldn't hold in the howling winds. "The Port of Duluth was a shambles," Julius F. Wolff Jr. would write later.

When the sun rose on November 28, wreckage from vessels caught on the lake in the blow littered the north shore. The Pittsburgh Steamship Company's Crescent City was lodged on the rocks northeast of downtown Duluth. The Lafayette, another "Pittsburgher," with her barge consort, the Manila, was broken up on Encampment Island northeast of Two Harbors.

Navigation was still treacherous as several vessels that had left the Twin Ports the previous afternoon tried to return. The first was the R.W. England, a 363-foot steel steamer that ran for the Duluth Ship Canal at full speed but quickly grounded on Minnesota Point just east of the canal. The next to try was the 478-foot steamer Isaac Ellwood, which pounded first into the North Pier and then into the South Pier before making it into harbor.

The last vessel to attempt the hazardous passage was the Mataafa. Shortly after 2 p.m., Captain Humble first ordered the line to his consort barge, the 450-foot James Nasmyth, let loose. Canal currents and wind-driven seas held the ship perpendicular to the North Pier, swung the bow around 270 degrees and pushed the vessel into shallow water 100 feet off the pier. Within an hour, waves broke the Mataafa in two.

Temperatures plunged to below zero by nightfall, with the wind chill at minus 40 degrees. Thousands of residents kept watch by bonfire through the night, heartened by glimpses of a fire fed by Humble and some of his men. At first light, 15 frostbitten survivors from Mataafa's bow section were rescued, including the captain. All nine crew members in the stern had drowned or frozen to death.

All told, the November 1905 storms — including the "Mataafa blow" — took 78 lives on the Upper Great Lakes and destroyed 19 vessels. Damage estimates ran as high as $2 million. The stormy season was a reminder that even improvements to the Twin Ports harbor were of little help against the gales of November.

Reprinted from Pride of the Inland Seas: An Illustrated History of the Port of Duluth-Superior