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Porte Des MortsPorte des Morts, also known as Porte des Mortes, the Door of Death, and Death's Door is a strait separating Washington Island and Door Peninsula, two landmasses that make up parts of Door County, Wisconsin. The strait connects Lake Michigan to Green Bay. It is unclear how the passage's ominous name originated. The French name for the strait is translated into English as "Door of the Dead". The passage may have been named by the early French explorers who first visited the passage in the late 17th Century, but the passage was likely already connected with death by Native Americans before European contact. It is clear that several Native American canoes crashed against the rocky shores of the channel. The first European vessel to sink in Porte des Morts was a 45 ton French ship called the "Griffin". It was one of the largest ships sailing on the Great Lakes when it was lost in 1679. More than a hundred other shipwrecks occurred in Porte des Morts from the 17th Century into the early 1910s. Some of the more notable shipwrecks include the loss of the Fleetwing in 1888, the A.P. Nichols, Forest, and J.E. Gilmore in 1892, and the Louisiana during the Great Lakes Storm of 1913. Despite the name, almost all of the shipwrecks on Porte des Morts were not deadly incidents. This is attributed to the multiple lighthouses and rescue crafts at the strait. Today, most large ships no longer use Porte des Morts when traveling between Lake Michigan and Green Bay, opting instead to go north of Washington Island or pass through the Sturgeon Bay Canal to the south. The main vessel still operating on the channel is a ferry that provides transportation between Washington Island and the mainland. Recreational boats are also common on the strait during the summer.
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