Shipwreck foun in Superior

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Shipwreck found in good condition in Lake Superior

Wednesday, July 21, 2004

ASSOCIATED PRESS

DULUTH, Minn. -- After more than five years of searching, shipwreck hunters have found the remains of a bulk freighter that sank in the frigid waters of Lake Superior more than a century ago.

The Robert Wallace was detected June 5 in more than 300 feet of water about 13 miles south-southeast of Two Harbors. Experts say the find itself -- not to mention the condition of the ship -- is rare.

"We were amazed. It's so intact," said Jerry Eliason, a longtime diver who lives in Scanlon. "None of us had ever seen a wooden steamer that looked like that before. There's very little debris. Just about everything is still on the wreck. It's even sitting upright on an even keel."

The Robert Wallace was carrying iron ore when it sank on Nov. 17, 1902, in relatively calm water.

"There was no loss of life," Eliason said. "It hit a log or something is what it did and tore out its stern post."

The wreck, which was believed to be on the Minnesota side of the lake, actually was found in Wisconsin waters. Thom Holden, director of the Lake Superior Maritime Visitor Center in Duluth, said the historical record will need to be adjusted.

Jay Hanson, owner of Superior Scuba Center in Duluth, said the find has been "the buzz" of the diving community. "It's pretty rare to find a wreck in Lake Superior."

Eliason's last discovery, with longtime hunting partner Kraig Smith of Rice Lake, Wis., was in 1990, when he found the freighter Judge Hart, which sank in a storm in November 1942 in Canadian waters.

His search team includes Smith, Randy Beebe, of Duluth, and Ken Merryman, of Fridley. Eliason's son, Jarrod Eliason of Colorado Springs, Colo., designed the torpedo-looking side-scan sonar that first detected the Robert Wallace.

"We were all excited when we first saw it. We'd been working on this mystery for five years," said Merryman, a shipwreck hunter of more than 30 years and a member of the Great Lakes Shipwreck Preservation Society. "We drive around in circles a lot. It's nice to finally have a place to stop."

The team plans to dive to the Robert Wallace in August when Lake Superior warms up. The water is only about 42 degrees now, Merryman said.

Diving to the wreck will take about five minutes, and the team will spend about 10 minutes videotaping and photographing the ship before returning to the surface, Merryman said.

The Wallace appears to have sunk slowly and landed softly on the bottom. It's one of only a couple of wrecks in Lake Superior with its smokestack still in place.

"It's like nothing we've ever seen before," Eliason said of the wreck's condition. "The only thing we can detect missing is the wheelhouse."

The search team is worried about the amount of silt on the wreck. If disturbed, a cloud of slow-settling silt could obscure their view.