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Page 9 attributed to the storm. Inevitably, lake boats were caught in that same maelstrom, which churned the surface of the lakes into sadistic rogues. As the wind increased and the temperature dropped, precipitation spat a mixture of rain and snow. Off Port Huron amid the deteriorating weather; three steamers dropped their hooks with no intentions of tackling the broader waters. The Anna C. Minch, Alpena and Douglas Houghton would wait. The Minch and Alpena were upbound while the Houghton, just released from an unhealthy grounding near DeTour, was bound for Lorain, Ohio for repairs. One vessel did steal away from Port Huron that day, the Russia. On her first trip of the season, the passenger/package freight carrying Russia was sailing into Fate's watery embrace. Among the boats fleeing captivity of ice in Whitefish Bay while sailing into the razored teeth of the mounting gale was the steamer Schoolcraft towing the Cleveland-based schooner/barge George Nestor. Not long after, the Daniel J. Morrell passed up, and following some distance astern of the Morrell was the wooden steamer Adella Shores. Struggling to free herself from the Whitefish ice pack was the upbound coal-laden Aurania. Owned by the Corrigan-McKinney firm of Cleveland, the Aurania had begun her Great Lakes career as a 352-foot barge that was towed by the company steamer Aurora. During the winter of 1899, the Aurora's engine and machinery were installed in the Aurania, and after four seasons of being a barge, the Aurania now powered herself. On the 29th of April the quixotic winds had maneuvered the ice in Whitefish Bay into a frozen vice around the Aurania's durable steel hull. As the constricting force of the ice toyed with the Aurania as if she were an aluminum beer can, the impending damage was soon rendered. Captain Robert C. Pringle of the Aurania provided marvelous narrative on the ship's demise: "As though some invisible power dragged at her keel, the boat suddenly began to settle at the bow, and in a moment we knew that something serious had gone wrong. As she settled she listed, until we could hardly stand on the decks." A mile from open water on one side, where the steamer George W. Peavey could be seen along with a smaller Canadian vessel, and three miles of ice to Ile Parisienne and a distant freighter there, the Aurania used whistle signals to alert them of her plight while the flag was hoisted upside down signaling distress. Capt. Pringle and crew dragged three boats from the Aurania in preparation for the worst. As the ice wrenched at the Aurania, she was torqued to such a degree that her masts touched the ice, exposing her keel to an astonished captain and crew. Her stem dropped back into the water, and grinding and moaning like a poltergeist, the Aurania righted herself serenely on the water. Shortly thereafter, with a tremendous outsurge of pressure, the Aurania disappeared from the surface. "It was like a great, sad sermon," said Capt. Pringle, "like the end of the world". Having taken stock of the situation, particularly when the Canadian steamer and the Peavey had sailed off, it may very well have seemed like the end of the world. Capt. Pringle continued: "It wasn't a pleasant sensation to stand with twenty men on a floating field of rotting, breaking ice cakes watching those boat disappear. But on the other side, three miles away, we could see another steamer evidently caught in the same ice as we had been. It was our only chance and we took it." Pringle assembled his crew into three smaller parties, each with their own boat; two heavy yawls and a smaller wooden boat owned by Capt. Pringle. With tremendous difficulty overjagged, broken bergs encumbered by the lifeboats, the men made little progress in the first hour after the Aurania was sucked to the bottom of Lake Superior. Some crewmen slipped into cracks or through thin ice, but all regained safety. Capt. Pringle, considering the heavy yoke the lifeboats presented, decided to change his tactic. Relunctantly, he decided to abandon the larger yawls and retain only the smaller wooden boat. Thus unburdened, the parties of men made precipitous progress to their goal, the distant steamer which proved to be the J. H. Bartow. (The Bartow later in her life became the Pioneer of the Nicholson Transit fleet.) Aboard the Bartow, Capt. White and his crew anxiously watched the progress of the Aurania's crew through glasses, having readied a rescue party of their own should need be. Three hours after the Aurania went down, the weary crew reached the Bartow to a welcome that Capt. Pringle declared, "would call a man back from the dead". While it would take another thirty hours for the Bartow to work free from the ice imprisoning her and return the Aurania's crew to the Soo, it gave Pringle reflection to lavish his crew with praise, which he did upon return to his Cleveland home. "The crew was a bunch of thoroughbreds", said Pringle, "I don't want to see a gamer bunch. They