The first people came to the Lake Superior region 10,000 years ago after the retreat of the glaciers in the
Last Glacial Period. They are known as the
Plano, and they used stone-tipped spears to hunt
caribou on the northwestern side of Lake Minong. The Shield
Archaic peoples arrived around 5000 BC; evidence of this culture can be found at the eastern and western ends of the Canadian shore. They used bows and arrows, paddled dugout canoes, fished, hunted,
mined copper for tools and weapons, and established trading networks. They are believed to be the direct ancestors of the Ojibwe and
Cree. The people of the
Laurel complex (c. 500 BC to AD 500) developed
seine net fishing, evidence being found at rivers around Superior such as the Pic and Michipicoten. The people of the Terminal
Woodland period were evident in the area from AD 900 to 1650. They were
Algonquian peoples who hunted, fished and gathered berries. They used
snowshoes,
birch bark canoes and conical or domed lodges. At the mouth of the Michipicoten River, nine layers of encampments have been discovered. Most of the
Pukaskwa Pits were likely made during this time. , Minnesota In the 18th century, as the booming fur trade supplied Europe with
beaver hats, the
Hudson's Bay Company had a virtual monopoly in the region until 1783, when the rival
North West Company was formed. The North West Company built forts on Lake Superior at
Grand Portage,
Fort William, Nipigon, the Pic River, the Michipicoten River, and Sault Ste. Marie. But by 1821, with competition harming the profits of both, the companies merged under the Hudson's Bay Company name. Many towns around the lake are current or former mining areas, or engaged in processing or shipping. Today, tourism is another significant industry: the sparsely populated Lake Superior country, with its rugged shorelines and wilderness, attracts vacationers and adventurers.
Shipping Lake Superior has been an important link in the
Great Lakes Waterway, providing a route for the transportation of iron ore as well as grain and other mined and manufactured materials. Large cargo vessels called lake freighters, as well as smaller ocean-going
freighters, transport these commodities across Lake Superior. Shipping was slow to arrive at Lake Superior in the 19th century. The first steamboat to run on the lake was the
Independence in 1847, whereas the first steamers on the other Great Lakes began sailing in 1816. Ice closes the lake shipping from mid-January to late March. Exact dates for the shipping season vary each year, depending on weather conditions that form and break the ice.
Shipwrecks The southern shore of Lake Superior between
Grand Marais, Michigan, and
Whitefish Point is known as the "
Graveyard of the Great Lakes"; more ships have been lost around the Whitefish Point area than any other part of Lake Superior. These shipwrecks are now protected by the
Whitefish Point Underwater Preserve. Storms that claimed multiple ships include the
Mataafa Storm in November 1905 and the
Great Lakes Storm of 1913. Wreckage of —a ore carrier that sank on October 11, 1907, during a Lake Superior storm in 77 fathoms () of water—was located in August 2007. Built in
Lorain, Ohio,
Cyprus was launched August 17, 1907, and was lost on her second voyage hauling iron ore from Superior, Wisconsin, to Buffalo, New York, with the sole survivor among her 23 crew being Charles G. Pitz. In 1918 the last warships to sink in the Great Lakes,
French minesweepers Inkerman and Cerisoles, vanished in a Lake Superior storm, perhaps upon striking the uncharted danger of the
Superior Shoal in an otherwise deep part of the lake. With 78 crewmembers dead, their sinking marked the largest loss of life on Lake Superior to date. is the last ship that sank in Lake Superior, from Whitefish Point in a storm on November 10, 1975. The wreck was immortalized by
Gordon Lightfoot in his ballad
"The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald". All 29 crew members died, and no bodies were recovered.
Edmund Fitzgerald was battered so intensely by Lake Superior that the ship split in half; her two pieces lie approximately apart at a depth of 88 fathoms (). Lightfoot sings that "Superior, they said, never gives up her dead". This is because of the unusually cold water, under on average around 1970.
Joe MacInnis reported that in July 1994, explorer Frederick Shannon's Expedition 94 to the wreck of
Edmund Fitzgerald discovered a man's body near the port side of her pilothouse, not far from the open door, "fully clothed, wearing an orange life jacket, and lying face down in the sediment". In February 2024, it was announced that wreckage from the
SS Arlington, which sank in 1940, was discovered. ==Ecology==