Thunder Bay Sanctuary Research Collection 

A Unique Partnership
In 2004 the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary established an agreement with the Alpena County George N. Fletcher Public Library to jointly manage the Thunder Bay Sanctuary Research Collection, one of the nation’s richest maritime repositories relative to Great Lakes history.

The Thunder Bay Sanctuary Research Collection is housed at the Alpena County George N. Fletcher Public Library. The collection comprises:
More than 1,000 published works

• 65,000 photographs
• 56 linear feet of vertical files
• 40 feet of periodicals
• 100 navigation charts
• 350 shipbuilding plans
• Manuscripts and ephemera
• Files on more than 20,000 Great Lakes watercraft

A Generous Donation
The heart of the collection was amassed over a period of more than forty years by historian C. Patrick Labadie. When he retired from a long career in various Great Lakes maritime museums in 2000, Labadie had amassed one of the largest private collections of Great Lakes history in existence. Labadie and his wife June contributed the collection to the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary in 2003. Since that donation, dozens of others have fortified the collection with their own data.

A World-Class Resource
The greatest strength of this collection is in nineteenth-century Great Lakes wooden shipbuilding technology, but the it includes information about Great Lakes ports and waterways, cargoes, ships, owners and fleets, and shipwrecks.

Collection Use
In addition to providing the historical basis for the Sanctuary’s archaeological research, the collection allows Great Lakes historians and library patrons access to documents and photographs not previously available to the public. In an effort to make the collection even more accessible, a $235,000 grant from the Michigan Department of History, Arts, and Libraries will be used to digitize the collection and create an online database of the vessels information and photographs. The collection is open to the public, but non-circulating. Please call 989-356-6188 ext. 17 for collection hours or to set up an appointment with the collection archivist.

 Please click on the link to learn more: Thunder Bay Sanctuary Research Collection (pdf, 592K)

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