Had they known of her death, Michigan's Great Lakes fishermen might have held a wake for the fishing tug, John B. Cloutier. She was among the last of the state's big fishing boats, and in her prime supported five families with her daily catches of lake trout and whitefish.

She died officially at 10:30 AM in December, 1972. Workmen from the Macomb County Road Commission tore her 57-foot, rotting hull apart as she lay half submerged in the Clinton River. She had been in the river for nearly a year after her last owner, apparently frustrated by the expense of keeping her running, finally abandoned her.

The Cloutier's last docking place was near a clump of trees on the north side of the river in Harrison Township. But her end began 30 years ago in 1942 when the lamprey, combined with indiscriminate fishermen, practically wiped out the fishing industry in the Great Lakes. Her demise would have gone unnoticed except for Francis Teno, an East Detroit man, whose second cousin began building the Cloutier in 1929.

Teno saw a picture in the news of the boat being torn up and went to the site along the river. "It was Her," said Teno, "My God, I hadn't seen her in 25 years."

Teno's second cousin, a French Canadian immigrant, saved enough money to build his own boat, the Cloutier. Cloutier was in his 60s by the time the vessel was launched, and his five sons sailed the boat through the end of World War II. They supported themselves and their families from her catches.

"I used to go up there from Detroit on weekends and sail," said Teno. "She was a big, strong boat, and with that iron sheeting on her hull, she broke ice."

"My cousin fished the year around and only once, one October, did they have to quit because of ice."

Teno said the vessel, displacing 100 tons, was extremely seaworthy. It once rode out a vicious November storm on Lake Huron that lasted 18 hours. The ship was powered by a diesel turning a four-foot propeller. In 1939, to the surprise of the master of a freighter that had run aground, the Cloutier towed the much bigger ship into deeper water.

After World War II, the Eels and Lax Laws that allowed over-fishing of Lake Huron, depleted the fish. The Cloutier brothers either died or moved on to other jobs. The Cloutier at one time fished out of Harbor Beach.