Shipwreck discovery?

[LKunze]

Deep mystery
John Myers Duluth News Tribune
Published Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Ice anglers walking off the sand beach of Duluth’s Park Point have found what may be an uncharted wreckage of a Lake Superior vessel.

The outline of the wreckage was first spotted Sunday through the 10 inches of crystal-clear ice that now covers much of Lake Superior off Duluth. It sits about 300 feet out from the shoreline off the 2600 block of Minnesota Avenue, in water 10 feet deep.

Other anglers have drilled holes in the ice and lowered an underwater video camera to take a closer look.

Maritime historians say it’s not clear if the finding is a discovery of an uncharted wreck or if it’s a documented wreck that somehow was moved by currents or shifting sands. Shipwreck maps document several sunken vessels off Duluth, but all are closer either to the Duluth Ship Canal or to Superior Entry.

It’s also possible that sand covering the wreckage had been moved off the area and that the near-record low Lake Superior water level may have made the wreckage easier to see.

Either way, it seems astonishing that no one has ever noticed the wreck before. And it seems even stranger that anything that substantial could have moved very far.

John Williams, who lives on Park Point, said he first noticed the wreck Feb. 15 while ice skating. On Sunday he and others used an ice fishing underwater video camera to take a closer look. They found wooden parts, what appears to be a drive shaft and a propeller.

Williams said the wreck is farther off shore than earlier estimates. He said a GPS reading showed it about 300 feet from the broken ice near shore, off the 2600 block of Minnesota Avenue.

“I’ve boated over that spot and swam over it and never saw it before,’’ said Isaac Ginsberg of Duluth. Ginsberg, a professional photographer, happened on the anglers who found the wreck. He took still photographs of the underwater camera’s monitor. The photos show the outline of a large wooden vessel and a driveshaft.

“We could also see the propeller, and it was big… maybe three feet across,’’ Ginsberg said, adding that it appeared too big to move much. “Maybe they beached it and burned it or something.’’

Thom Holden, director of the Lake Superior Maritime Visitors Center in Duluth, said he knew of no wreck in that area. He noted that chunks of wrecks, along with other items — such as the mystery crib recently washed ashore in Duluth — have surprised Lake Superior buffs before.

“There’s nothing I could find that’s supposed to be in that spot. How it got there, or why no one ever noticed it before, who knows?” Holden said.

Steven Sola, who was with Williams on Sunday, said the wreck was clearly visible in less than 15 feet of water.

After happening upon the wreckage, Sola retrieved a small underwater camera used for fishing. The camera revealed the decking timbers and propeller blades sticking out of the sand.

"It's amazingly clear," he said. "It was like a PBS special."

After consulting some charts and other ship resources, Sola said he thinks it might be the City of Winnipeg, a wooden passenger ship built in 1870. The Minnesota Historical Society's list of shipwrecks said the City of Winnipeg was partially burned in a fire in 1881 and scuttled at an unknown location in 1898.

Conditions on the ice are unpredictable and can become dangerous quickly. Efforts by a News Tribune reporter and photographer to visit the site Tuesday afternoon were thwarted by a pressure ridge that appeared to have caused a rift of open water.

Jan Saillard, owner of Innerspace Scuba in Duluth’s West End, said he hadn’t heard of any wreckage in that area known to divers but speculated it might be a scuttled boat.

“They scuttled tugboats off the point and it might be one of those where the sand shifted recently and exposed something,’’ he said.

While it’s not unusual for the western tip of Lake Superior to freeze enough for anglers to walk out on the lake, it is unusual for the lake to freeze this smooth and clear, and to have little or no snow covering the ice. It’s possible to see through the ice and clear water to objects on the bottom 20 or more feet below.