Wednesday, November 16, 2011

New Discoveries in Lake Michigan!

Every city that borders Lake Michigan has its own stories about ships that set off across the treacherous lake, never to return. Among the oldest families are tales of family members lost to the lake in the years when unpredictable weather and a violent winter made sailing Lake Michigan as dangerous as sailing open ocean. Our own Lake Michigan is shrouded in mystery.

Two weeks ago, a local Michigan man named Ross Richardson (pictured to the left, courtesy of sleepingbeardunes.com and credited to Chris Doyal)came a step closer to solving two of these unsolved mysteries. While diving in a secluded area of the lake near the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, he discovered two new shipwrecks that have not yet been identified; one appears to be a sailing vessel, the other a steam-powered ship. He also dove a third vessel that has already been identified as the 'James McBride.' He says that one of them contains many artifacts; however, he made the decision to leave them all on the wreck, contenting himself with pictures and videos taken on the wrecks. He told the Traverse City Record-Eagle, "My trophies are the stories, the videos and the photos I can share with people."

His attitude is admirable; it's not uncommon for new wrecks to be "plundered" for historical artifacts, most often for personal collections (see the case of the missing Wells Burt deadeyes). He has so far kept the exact location of these wrecks a secret, just as he did when he discovered the Westmoreland in 2010.

Check out his website, michiganmysteries.com, to watch some amazing videos and follow his progress; learn more about this story from Sleeping Bear Dunes's Blog.

1 comment:

  1. This was one of the better blogs I like it a lot, nice job and I did learn from it.

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