Never Gives Up Her Dead (Fateful Encounters with Lake Superior)

This spellbinding profile of Lake Superior, one of the world’s most volatile landscapes, vividly portrays nature’s power over human ambition and the tragedies that arise when the two collide.

Among the Great Lakes, Superior is truly superlative. It is the biggest, coldest, deepest, northernmost, and westernmost lake. It spans states and countries, eras and ages. Lake Superior occupies an indelible place in the imaginations of all who encounter it. Despite the lake’s extremes, human beings have long dared to live near and travel or work on it. Unfortunately, the record shows that technological prowess is no guarantee against the dangers and power of the lake. 

Never Gives Up Her Dead is an exploration of encounters with the lake’s extremes and how its deadly conditions have laid bare the hubris of miners, explorers, paddlers, and swimmers. Drawing on archival research, Andrew Slade goes beyond familiar stories and headlines to tell forgotten histories of the shipwrecks, drownings, disappearances, and murders that dot Lake Superior’s map. The book concludes with a reflection on what it takes to face Superior’s dangers and make it out alive.