This book chronicles fifty of the most terrible events to strike people on these vast inland seas and in surrounding communities. Erratic weather on the Great Lakes has brought down ships from War of 1812 schooners to the legendary 'Edmund Fitzgerald'. On shore, great fires devastated young cities like Chicago and Toronto and cut high swaths through the forests. Train wrecks, explosions and environmental disasters like the Love Canal has been painful catalysts of change. In all the stories, the many ways people respond in times of crisis reveal the human core in all its complexity.