The international border runs through the bay, which is heavily used by shipping traffic northbound from and southbound to the Soo Locks.

Whitefish Point Lighthouse is the oldest active light on Lake Superior.

It holds artifacts from the shipwrecks listed below and has information on the notable wreck of SS Edmund Fitzgerald in 1975, in which all 29 crew were lost.

After the Soo Locks opened in 1855 and ship traffic increased on Lake Superior, Whitefish Bay was the site of numerous shipwrecks, often due to hazardous weather.

[3] Whitefish Bay is included in the lyrics of singer/composer Gordon Lightfoot's memorial tribute "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald".