Great Lakes Patrol assigned to operate against criminals who were ravaging the logging industry. These so called timber pirates conducted illegal cutting of timber on federal land and then smuggled the valuable commodity out of the area in order to sell it. The areas most affected were in the western Great Lakes region, along the coasts of Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois and Minnesota. Much of these forested areas controlled by the government were reserved for the building of new warships. The illegal timber trade centered on Chicago and Milwaukee. It was nearly as violent as the alcohol trade, which was carried out over the
Marine Museum of the Great Lakes history of the Calvin and Son shipyard which once employed 700 workers on Garden Island. The museum has photographed historic shipwrecks at risk of being hidden by encrustations of zebra mussels which infested the Great Lakes in the 1990s. Archaeological exhibits commemorating the War of 1812 on the Great Lakes were added for that war's bicentennial. Publications of the museum include "FreshWater", a journal of Great Lakes marine history, a "Jib Gems" museum newsletter and several books on local marine history. Extensive archives and collections are maintained with the assistance of Queen's University, documenting 19th and 20th century Canadian Great