Great Lakes Maritime Heritage Center — Attraction in Alpena

So much info. A must see. Interactive, informative, historical & a learning experience for all ages. Even if you have to go out of you way to visit please do. You won't be sorry. Artifacts from sunken ships, pictures, info about global changes, weather, archaeology room where artifacts are cleaned, history is amazing. NOAA center on sight, dive teams for going to discover & photo sunken ships, field trips to museum for schools, gift shop, great lakes heritage walkway outdoors along river. So much to see & do it should be a requirement for ALL michigan residents & school classes. Loved every second & couldn't get enough of what it had to offer. Impressed by the info on recycling & the damage of plastics that are in our great lakes from littering & the harm & death it causes our precious wildlife-very sad & impacted me & now Im going to pick up trash everywhere I see it doesnt belong. Save our wildlife & ourselves from our own destruction. Our kids & their kids get to tackle this world one day so lets teach them everything they need to know to make this a better place than it is now. Please leave a donation in the box at the door upon leaving to help support their work & contributions. All for good...

This was very fun and educational! I learned a lot about shipwrecks and the history of the area, as well as the ecology of the lake and the technology used to find and study the shipwrecks. This museum is also a great place to take children; they have several interactive exhibits and a giant model of a ship in a storm that you can walk through, complete with the sound of creaking wood and lights that "sway" with the waves. After walking through the ship you go "underwater" in another exhibit that simulates a shipwreck so you can see how the ship would be effected by the water in shallow vs deep water. In this section they actually have a small play area where kids can crawl through a clear tunnel over the shipwreck for a "diver's eye view." The tunnels then end in a slide. It was cool and if I didn't have bad knees I'd have gone up...

Awesome museum and immersive shipwreck experience! The loud storm sounds and flashing lights for lightning can be a lot for a child. Suggest they offer sensory-free times each hour to go through the ship. The staff were super nice. Especially Courtney who helped my 7 year-old grandson by offering to turn off the storm so we could go through the ship when we went back again before closing. She also loaned him a flashlight and climbed up and helped him see where to go in the dark playscape (that’s supposed to look like they are diving underwater). He liked the museum so much he wanted to go back again the next day! (45 minutes each way from our campground). We went back and enjoyed some additional things we didn’t see before; like the living roof....