Sunday afternoon, October 26th, 2pm

Christopher Winters, from Milwaukee, will speak on Sunday afternoon, Oct. 26 at 2:00 pm. He has just published "Centennial" featuring the oldest freighter still in service on the Great Lakes, having celebrated her 100th anniversary of continuous operation in 2007. The book was 5 years in the making and his powerpoint presentation will combine his beautiful photography of commercial shipping on the Great Lakes and many stories gathered from his total access to the boat and her crew. He will bring copies and sell them after the presentation.


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Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society Board Member Chris Winters spent five years creating a vivid record of life aboard the venerable Great Lakes steamboat S.S. St. Marys Challenger as she approached the centennial anniversary of her maiden voyage in 2006. A frequent visitor to Milwaukee’s harbor and reportedly the oldest operational freight ship in the world, the Challenger began her remarkable fresh water career on the Great Lakes on April 28, 1906—six years before the launch of R.M.S. Titanic.

Granted unprecedented access to the vessel by her owners, Winters set off on a personal quest to record an old way of life in a new way by focusing revolutionary digital cameras on this revolutionary machine from another century. On April 28, 2006, the centennial anniversary of her maiden voyage from the Great Lakes Engineering Works, Challenger became the first vessel on the Great Lakes—and quite possibly in the history of seafaring—to eclipse 100 years while still in commercial service.

Centennial: Steaming Through the American Century is a painstakingly researched, masterfully designed, 240-page hardcover that contains over 300 contemporary and archival images from the boat’s hardworking 100-year history.

Chris Winters is a Milwaukee-based photojournalist specializing in Great Lakes maritime subjects. Smitten with the lore of lake boats and the mythology surrounding the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, Winters is a veteran wreck diver, dynamic lecturer on Great Lakes shipwreck history, and a frequent contributor to Great Laker magazine. His documentary work has been exhibited in museums and galleries throughout the region.