Keeper's Log: December 18, 2025

Date: Thursday, December 18, 2025

Weather

Current (as reported at evening): 28°F, Partly Cloudy

Day High: 34°F | Night Low: 18°F

Wind: W at 15-25 mph, gusts to 35 mph

Lake: Rough, 6-9 ft seas

Precipitation: Light snow flurries, trace accumulation

Visibility: 8 miles, reduced at times

Sunrise: 8:35 am | Sunset: 4:59 pm

Moon Phase: Waning Gibbous, 72% illumination

Active Alerts

High Wind Warning: In effect through this evening

Issued by NWS Marquette

West winds 25 to 35 mph with gusts up to 50 mph. Gusty winds could blow around unsecured objects. Tree limbs could be blown down and a few power outages may result. Travel will be difficult, especially for high profile vehicles.

Storm Warning: Lake Superior, in effect through Friday morning

Issued by NWS Marquette

West to northwest winds 35 to 45 knots with gusts to 55 knots. Waves 10 to 14 feet, occasionally to 18 feet. Heavy freezing spray possible.

Gale Watch: In effect from Friday afternoon through Saturday morning

Another system approaching. North winds 30 to 40 knots possible with waves building to 12 feet.

Keeper's Entry

Today was blustery and gray, with temperatures climbing from 18 overnight to a high of 34 under partly cloudy skies that couldn't quite decide what they wanted to do. The wind came steady from the west all day, gusting hard enough to rattle the windows and send the cedars swaying. Not a day for the lake.

Woke up disappointed. Checked the shipping app first thing, as I always do, hoping to catch a freighter anchored in the Keweenaw Bay. Nothing. The horizon stayed empty all morning. With a storm warning in effect and seas building to 14 feet, no captain in their right mind was going anywhere in the open water for long. Superior was in charge today.

But the lake's loss was the land's gain. Around midday, a rafter of wild turkeys came strutting across the property, at least a dozen of them, picking through the snow near the woodpile. And they had company: a yearling deer, all legs and caution, browsing alongside them like it belonged. The turkeys didn't seem to mind. They just kept scratching at the frozen ground, looking for whatever seeds and acorns they could find beneath the snow.

A group of turkeys is called a rafter, which I only learned recently. The term dates back to the 16th century, possibly a reference to how they roost together in tree branches, lined up like rafters in a barn. In winter, turkeys form large single-sex flocks for safety and warmth. Hens stick with hens, and toms form what are called bachelor flocks, sometimes numbering 20 to 50 birds. They're omnivores, foraging for acorns, beechnuts, seeds, insects, and whatever agricultural waste they can scrounge. The wild turkey population in Michigan went from zero in 1900, wiped out by habitat loss and unregulated hunting, to over 200,000 today. That's one of the great conservation success stories, and it's especially remarkable in the UP, where winters like this one test even the hardiest species. Today's visitors looked healthy and unbothered. Good foraging, apparently...and maybe a few apples tossed out by my son.

The propane truck came through this afternoon. Watched the driver navigate the drive in the wind, hunched against the gusts. He topped off the tank and was gone inside of twenty minutes. Essential business. With temperatures dropping into the teens tonight and family arriving Friday, we'll need every BTU.

Speaking of arrivals, there are ships nearby, just not where the cameras can see them. MarineTraffic shows two 1,000-footers riding at anchor in Keweenaw Bay, tucked in to wait out the weather. The Stewart J. Cort and the American Integrity. Both too big, too deep, and too smart to challenge Superior in a blow like this.

The Cort is a special one. Built in 1972, she was the first 1,000-footer on the Great Lakes, launched for Bethlehem Steel and named for Stewart S. Cort, who served as the company's chairman from 1970 to 1974. Her construction was a minor engineering marvel: the bow and stern sections were built in Pascagoula, Mississippi, welded together, and sailed up through the St. Lawrence Seaway as a 182-foot vessel nicknamed "Stubby." At Erie, Pennsylvania, they cut her apart and spliced in an 818-foot midbody. She's the only 1,000-footer with her pilothouse forward, a nod to the old laker tradition. At 105 feet wide, she fills the Poe Lock at the Soo like, as one captain put it, "a whale in a bathtub." Interlake Steamship has operated her since 2005, and she still hauls iron ore pellets between the Twin Ports and the lower lakes. Fifty-three years of service and counting.

The American Integrity has her own story. She was built in 1978 at Bay Shipbuilding in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, originally christened Lewis Wilson Foy for another Bethlehem Steel chairman. Renamed Oglebay Norton in 1991, then American Integrity when American Steamship Company bought her in 2006. In 2017, she broke the all-time Soo Locks record for the largest load of iron ore: 75,095 tons, loaded to a draft of 29 feet 7 inches. She broke her own record two years later with 76,424 tons. At 1,000 feet long and capable of unloading 10,000 tons per hour, she's a workhorse. Today she's just sitting, like the Cort, waiting for the lake to settle.

Inside, I lit a fire in the fireplace and spent the afternoon hanging holiday decorations. Family arrives Friday, weather permitting, and the lighthouse should look the part. The tree is up. The stockings are hung. The wind is howling outside, but in here it's warm.

Tomorrow looks calmer, briefly, before another system moves through. The ships may make a run for Marquette. Or they may wait for Saturday. That's the thing about December on Superior: you plan around the weather, not the calendar.

The cedars are bent but holding. The propane tank is full. The fire is crackling. Good day to be on land.

The Portage River Lighthouse restoration continues through the winter months. Follow the Keeper's Log for updates on the project, the ships, and the daily rhythms of life on Lake Superior's shore.