|
According
to Conan Eaton's Death's Door: The Pursuit of a Legend
(1974), the name "Death's Door"
.clearly
follows the French "Porte des Morts," which was attached
to the waterway possibly in the 1600s but more probably around
1700. While "Porte" may perhaps have followed a poetic Indian
name, it as possibly was coined by the French on their canoe-borne
travels. The legend as we know it today is a mixture of motifs-modern,
frontier American, early French, and probably even aboriginal.
|
Three
of Death's Door's victims, the J.E. Glimore
(left), the A.P. Nichols (right), and the remains
of the Forest (between dock in foreground and
the Gilmore) ashore on Pilot Island, October 1892. Read
more about them. |
Eaton
notes that the legend has flourished over the years:
Beyond
question, the Death's Door legend refuses to die. Indeed,
within recent times it has done better than stay alive;
nurtured by modern minstrels who bathe it in vivid color...
Whether
or not the passage ever exacted high tolls in human life,
it definitely excelled as a killer of ships. The official
1906 Sailing Directions for Lake Michigan, Green Bay and
the Strait of Mackinac describes the passage this way:
There
is a strong current setting in and out according to the direction
of the wind, and many vessels have been lost in consequence.
It is frequently so strong that sailing vessels can not
make headway against it. The coast is rock-bound and certain
destruction awaits the craft going ashore. Sometimes the
current is against the wind.
|
