Sunny skies greeted a steady stream of visitors Saturday to the inaugural Great Lakes Fest held by the National Museum of the Great Lakes in East Toledo.
Event guests could learn about Great Lakes history “whether it's on board our vessels, inside the 11,000 square feet of museum space, or walking about the maritime park and taking a look at some of the antique vessels,” said Kate Fineske, who headed up the event as the museum’s senior director of institutional advancement.
With a plethora of activities, food trucks flanked by antique cars, antique boats, and a maritime market, the museum hopes to make Great Lakes Fest a staple of the Toledo experience.
And the Great Lakes experience would not be complete without touring the main event, the massive S.S. Col. James M. Schoonmaker, the 1911-vintage lakes freighter with capacity for more than 10,000 tons of coal or iron ore that is the museum’s largest exhibit and literally overshadowed all of the festival’s other attractions.
Emphasizing tours of the Schoonmaker, Ms. Fineske said, “The number one thing to do ... is to take a tour of this boat and explore from the tip top to the bottom of it.”
The Tug Ohio, a smaller and more recent acquisition, was also available for tours, and shortly afternoon the Toledo Fire & Rescue Department’s Marine 1 fireboat put on a demonstration of its four water cannons.
“The museum itself is fantastic,” said Rex Cassidy, a 57-year-old museum member from Cleveland who made the trip to check out the marine mart and antique-boat exhibits.
“It's very impressive,” Eugene Naujock, 82, of West Toledo, said of the museum, now in its 9th year on the East Toledo waterfront. “It's a wonderful asset for Toledo.”
Of all the different items on display Mr. Naujock took particular interest in an antique Chris-Craft boat.
“Chris Craft boats are pieces of art,” Mr. Naujock said, “They're very beautiful.”
Mr. Naujock attended with three grandchildren, who favored different aspects of the festival including the antique boats, the museum displays, and the tugboat.
“The entire museum was built to attract any age, as well as the museum vessels,” Ms. Fineske said. “But while they're exploring the vessels, we have a scavenger hunt for kids.”
Altogether the museum was hoping for around 1,000 people to turn out for the event, and hopes for even more numbers in the future.
“We're just excited to have people here to take a look at all the deep maritime history that Toledo has, and the Great Lakes has,” Ms. Fineske said.
First Published August 6, 2022, 9:29 p.m.
