Lake Erie Gives Up It’s Dead For All Hallow’s Eve: Two New Shipwrecks Found - Video
(No … NOT Eat and Park “Smile Face” Cookies …)
November 10, 1975 the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald was lost on Lake Superior in an early winter blast we on the North Coast refer to as a November Witch. It was the Fall of my senior year in high school. I recall that snow storm and the ice and winds. I also recall the news channels, especially in Cleveland, waiting for hours and days for Coast Guard word that hopefully the ship had been found adrift and disabled, or some such … holding back the fear that she was sent to the bottom of one of The Great Lakes … which she had been. The whole of the crew lost in the mystery of exactly what happened that day/night.
While living in Cleveland, I visited a maritime museum on Lake Erie. I was astonished at the number of ships the Lakes had claimed. Over the years I have bought books the size of small phone books on the subject to read individual ship stories of wreckage and loss. It amazes me in that you expect these sorts of disasters on the oceans, but I had no idea the Lakes were as treacherous as I was reading about. In my reading I read accounts of ocean going ship captains who had made journeys across the Great Lakes … and swore they felt safer on the open waters of the oceans.
Back at the earliest years of our having settled the Northern Coastal areas of this country along The Great Lakes, before electricity was available and “light pollution” prevalent, residents could see ships clear out on the Lakes in the pitch of night and see a ship on fire (usually the reason for a ship sinking on the waters) … They would gather on the shores of the Lakes and build fires to guide any survivors to shore (usually those in the water died shortly after due to the cold), and would prepare wagons and blankets for collecting and burying the dead who would undoubtedly wash ashore throughout the following day.
Having lived on the Cleveland coast during one of the worst years of weather, (winter and summer), the storms come in so quickly and dangerously you wonder how early settlers dealt with such natural animosity. I saw waves you could surf on. I saw waves in the middle of a winter with sustained below zero temperatures … frozen in motion and in time. I cannot imagine being out on any of those land-locked seas, let alone during a storm.
(WKYC-TV)
LAKE ERIE — The Black Friday storm of 1893 was horrific. On October 13th, the three masted schooner “Riverside” headed out from the quarry dock at Kelly’s Island loaded with 670 tons of stone. The sailboat disappeared in 20-foot waves.
125 years later, underwater explorers David VanZandt and Tom Kowalczyk found the “Riverside” sitting on the bottom of the lake in 80 feet of water.
Tom Kowalczyk said, “As it started to take shape on the sonar display and define itself, I said ‘Dave, we got it. This is it.’”
Despite challenging visibility, the two were able to dive on the wreck several times. They could see the windlass used to bring up the big anchors. The fore mast was just a stub, with the rest ripped away in the storm. There were pad eyes for the rigging staring out from the bottom of the lake.
“All the deck hardware is still there, David VanZandt said. “The rigging is still there, and it’s in pristine condition.”
Christopher Gillcrist, the Executive Director for the Great Lakes Historical Society in Vermilion said, “People forget that the Great Lakes are as bad as any ocean on earth. The waves might not get as big as the North Atlantic, but they come quickly and they can overwhelm a boat just as easily.”
A few miles away, the team also found the schooner, “Plymouth,” buried under three feet of mud. The 101-foot sailboat had been rammed by the steamer, “Northern Indiana” on June 22, 1852.
Experts say 300 wrecks have already been found in Lake Erie with another 500 still missing. The team from Cleveland Underwater Explorers plans to return to the hunt next summer.
Said Kowalczyk, “We’re eager to get out there and say this is the time and this is the one. We’re going to go out and find another shipwreck next year.”
For more information contact the Great Lakes Historical Society in Vermiion at 1.800.893.1485 x 3.
The Society will be raffling off 3 trips aboard a Great Lakes freighter at the “Treasures on the Lakes” benefit on November 8, 2008 in Cleveland, Ohio. Visit www.inlandseas.org for more details on each prize.
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