Fish Tugs of the Greatest Lake

ATOMIC (FISH HOG)

ATOMIC 256248 Built at Green Bay, Wis, in 1948 by Arnold Johnson, for Arthur Lasanen, Sr., Big Traverse Bay, Mich. The steel hull was 40 ft. x 12 ft. The boat was trucked to Big Traverse, where the owner built the wood cabin and installed the GM 4- 71 diesel engine. Following the retirement of Lasanen Sr. the boat was operated by Arthur Lasanen, Jr. for many years. In the early 1980s the boat was sold to a tribal fisheries operator, Donald Tadgerson, Brimley Mich., who changed the boat's name to FISH HOG.

ATOMIC at Big Traverse Bay, Mich., in Oct. 1981.

By 2007, the boat lay abandoned. A local bank had an interest in the FISH HOG, but was unsuccessful in coming to any agreement to resolve the matter of getting any money from the owner. In consequence, the bank sold the boat for scrap value, and it was cut up at Dafter, Mich., in June, 2008.

Below: the FISH HOG, formerly ATOMIC, on shore at Brimley, 2007. (Wendell Willkie collection.)