The Eagle Harbor Life Saving Station Museum. Image Courtesy of the Keweenaw County Historical Society website

The Eagle Harbor Life Saving Station Museum is inviting the public to its open house from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday. Refreshments will be available.

Before the U.S. Coast Guard, there was the United States Life Saving Service. The Lifesaving Service was a volunteer, and was proud of its motto: “You have to go out, but you don’t have to come back.” The purpose of the service was, simply, to save the lives of shipwrecked sailors.

In 1912, a Lifesaving station was constructed on the east point of Eagle Harbor, about a half-mile from the Eagle Harbor Lighthouse. The station had two means to rescue sailors aboard wrecked or stranded vessels: a strong line stretched from shore to the vessel, or lifeboats.

In the first instance, to get the line to the vessel, it was shot from a Lyle gun, similar to a small cannon. It could fire a projectile, which carried the thin line, for a distance of about 60 yards. Men aboard the vessel could attach a heavier line called a hawser. With the line secure, a life car was attached to it to run back and forth between ship and shore.

The other means was a self-bailing, self-righting boat, crewed by six surfmen, using oars from 12 to 18 feet long. The boats weighed from 700 to 1,000 pounds and were incredibly seaworthy. The lifeboat could also be fitted with sails for longer distances from shore.

According to the National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Eagle Harbor Coast Guard Station Boathouse, when the Eagle Harbor station was completed, the complex included, as its principal buildings: a one-and-one-half-story, shingled station building , with its hip-roof watch tower at the corner, and a two-bay hip-roof boathouse that appears to have stood·about where the present boathouse is located.

Other buildings and structures were added over the years. In 1938 the original two-bay boathouse was replaced with the present three-bay structure built to house additional equipment and larger boats.

The station was closed by the United States Coast Guard in 1950, and today, only the 1938 boathouse remains, which is now a museum maintained and operated by the Keweenaw County Historical Society (KCHS).

According to the KCHS website, the museum now displays all the early wooden rescue boats used by the U.S. Life-Saving Service and the U.S. Coast Guard. It now has on exhibit its jewel, a completely restored 26 Ft Pulling Surfboat, donated by Wheaton College of Illinois.

In addition to free admission of the museum, the U.S. Coast Guard Station Portage, from 12:30 – 2:30, will offer dockside tours of its new 25-foot jet propelled rescue boat; the Keweenaw County Sheriff’s Office will have their rescue equipment on display.