Thunder Bays superintendent Jeff Gray told me that the attraction of visiting shipwrecks was a gateway to the sanctuary's primary missions, which include conservation, research and education, as well as supporting coastal communities, and contributing to local economies. The Thunder Bay Sanctuary designation was initially controversial. Alpena residents voted against the Thunder Bay Sanctuary designation in 1997 because they were afraid that the federal government might override local oversight and limit their waters.These fears are now mostly gone. Thunder Bay is seen by many as a driving force for the local economy. It was hit hard when a major paper mill closed at the same time the sanctuary was established. The Alpena Area Convention & Visitors Bureau changed their slogan in 2012 from A Warm and Friendly Port, to Sanctuary of the Great Lakes. It received wide support for expanding the sanctuary from 448 to 4300 square miles.After spending a day and half boating, kayaking and floating in the sanctuary's waters, we spent the remainder of our weekend along the shoreline. Rockport Recreation Area is a Michigan state park located on the Lake Huron coast between Alpena & Presque Isle. The 100th state park in Michigan had a charming, rustic quality. The signs to the park are difficult to find, and I was certain that we had made a wrong turn after driving on a dirt road for so many miles. The trail markers are still being eaten by porcupines, it seems. The sanctuary waters were arranged like a halo outside the parking lot, and finally the entrance was visible. We discovered that the park has a ghost town and a shipwreck. There are also natural sinkholes, bat hibernaculums, and natural sinkholes.These features will need to be saved for another visit because my children couldn't resist climbing the abandoned limestone quarry that runs along the park shoreline in search of fossils dating back to the Devonian Period, which is 400 million years old. Rockport allows visitors to bring home 25 pounds of fossils each year. This was especially motivating for them. My 7-year old wanted a fossil, but it weighed 50 pounds in knee-deep waters. So we let it go.
