Divers survey the wreck of the schooner Northerner, which sank off Port Washington, Wis. in 1868. The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration is considering 875-square-mile of Lake Michigan off the Wisconsin coast for designation as a National Marine Sanctuary. Photo courtesy of Wisconsin Historical Society, Maritime Preservation and Archaeology Program.

An 80-mile long stretch of Lake Michigan is on its way to  becoming the second Great Lakes National Marine Sanctuary. A story on MLive today reports the site contains 30 known shipwrecks including the “Rouse Simmons, a three-masted schooner known as the “Christmas Tree Ship,” which sunk with all hands off Two Rivers in November 1912.”

The proposed national sanctuary lies from 9 miles to 14 miles off the Wisconsin shoreline. The only  other one in the Great Lakes is Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary in Lake Huron off Alpena.  Read more: Great Lakes Shipwreck Sanctuaries.