See You Tube Video: Grave Robbers of the Great Lakes:

In this video the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society explore the bones of the crew from the shipwreck of the Superior City. Watch them remove a wedding band from a skeleton for display in their museum.

● See 1989 ROV Dive to the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald

● See Foreword from Halsey’s 1990 book, Beneath the Inland Seas.

In 1992, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources raided the GLSHS Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point after a former Board of Directors member turned them in for stealing large numbers of artifacts from shipwrecks on the Great Lakes bottomlands in Whitefish Bay.

● See the DNR Affidavit of Search Warrant of the GLSHS Shipwreck Museum.

In 1993, legal negotiations with the State of Michigan resulted in a settlement agreement with GLSHS that allowed them to display the stolen artifacts as a loan inside the Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point.

● See the State of Michigan Settlement Agreement with GLSHS about the stolen artifacts.

● See the Michigan Attorney General letter to GLSHS about stolen artifacts

See You Tube Video:

Operation Taconite on the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

● See Licenses to Conduct Archaeological Exploration Survey of Field Work:
Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald 1994 & 1995

In 1995, GLSHS appeared to manipulate family members of the crew of the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald to approve the salvaging of its bell. Once GLSHS gained possession of the Fitz bell, they defaced the bell by removal of careful conservation measures by Michigan State University.

● See Fitz Bell

In 2003, State Archaeologist Halsey endorsed a $225,000 federal grant for GLSHS to “survey” the very same shipwrecks they plundered and stripped of artifacts in Whitefish Bay.

● See the 1992 DNR Affidavit of Search Warrant of the GLSHS Shipwreck Museum.

● See the GLSHS Shipwreck Survey federal grant description.

● See correspondence between the Federal Highway Administration, the Michigan Department of Transportation, and the Whitefish Point Preservation Society.

In 2004, State Archaeologist Halsey finally inventoried the state’s artifacts inside the GLSHS Shipwreck Museum after he admitted that his office had never done so.

● See Michigan Archaeologist’s history of monitoring artifacts on loan to GLSHS since 1993.
● See Whitefish Point Local Politics
● See Whitefish Point State Politics

In 2005, Mike Simonson of Wisconsin Public Radio reported that GLSHS admitted that they obtained unlicensed sonar images of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.