The “Aha” was built in the early 1890s in Ephraim Shay’s machine shop on land that is Shay Park today. Built from Shay’s own design for his pleasure, this all-steel boat could carry 20 people. After its launch, a local magazine wrote that “nothing like it floats or ever floated on fresh water or salt.” Local stories claim that, with its triple-expansion engine, it set speed records on Little Traverse Bay. The watercraft is also honored for its August 1894 rescue of the “Manitou” steamship, stranded with hundreds of passengers, through foggy darkness and uncertain Lake Michigan waters to safety in Harbor Springs.