Great Lakes Now, Wooden Boats, Metal Trash, Stoney Fossils

PBS WESTERN RESERVE (WNEO 45.1 / WEAO 49.1):

Saturday, April 1, at 6 PM

A school preserves the craft of wooden boat building, regular folks get underwater garbage out of the Great Lakes and connected rivers, and fossils discovered by two amateur paleontologists open a window onto the region’s prehistoric past.

Segment 1: Wooden Boat Building

The Les Cheneaux Islands are a chain of 36 protected islands along the Northern shore of Lake Huron in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. For nearly a hundred years, wooden boats have been part of life in the islands, but as boat manufacturers turned to fiberglass, there were fewer craftspeople to carry on the wooden boat tradition. So the communities in the Islands came together and opened a school to teach students the art of wooden boat building. Take a look inside this unique school that is keeping the heritage of the Les Cheneaux Islands alive.

Segment 2: Out of Sight, Out of Mind

The Great Lakes Region is filled with beauty. But underneath the picturesque water is some unsightly trash. A few folks have come up with ways to scoop that garbage out of the water. One simple method in Michigan involves a powerful magnet.

In Toronto, a teenage scuba diver is shocked by all the garbage he finds on the lake bed.

Great Lakes Now takes a closer look at the impact that unseen litter has on our environment.ior.

Segment 3: Waukesha Fossils

When you picture a fossil, you might think of a gigantic skeleton of a dinosaur.

But in a Waukesha, Wisconsin quarry, two amateur paleontologists made an amazing discovery. They unearthed ultra-rare fossils that had been buried for more than 400 million years opened a window onto the Great Lakes region’s prehistoric past.