Australasia Added to National Historic Registry

• The remains of the Australasia, a wooden bulk carrier that sank about 800 feet southeast of Whitefish Dunes State Park beach, is one of three Lake Michigan shipwrecks added to the National Register of Historic Places. When launched in 1884, the Australasia was the largest wooden vessel on the Great Lakes. It was carrying 2,200 tons of coal when it caught fire and sank in October 1896. The other shipwrecks named to the National Register are the America, four miles offshore of Kewaunee, and a barge called the EMBA, off Milwaukee County. For more on the Australasia, read the Peninsula Pulse story “A Story Behind Each Wreck” published on June 29, 2012.

• Layla Scharpf, a 12-year-old from Sturgeon Bay, was selected as one of 36 girls in the country selected to participate in the inaugural Discovery Girls Tween Summit, hosted by Discovery Girls magazine. The summit will bring the magazine’s readers together to participate in workshops about bullying, body image and pressures of growing up.

• Wisconsin Trails rated three Door County beaches as the top 12 beaches in the state. Nicolet Beach in Peninsula State Park, Portage Town Park and Whitefish Dunes State Park made the list.