Diving the Great Lakes

In 2000, two of us (Malcolm Rahn and Richard Knights) went to Chicago and dived some of the wrecks in Lake Michigan. We were impressed with the quality of what we saw. In 2001 we went again, but this time we dived some of the wrecks up north. Mostly we dived Lake Superior, but we also ventured into the northern tips of Lake Michigan and Huron.

Lake Superior is the largest freshwater lake in the world with a mean depth of 160 metres. Half of the lake is American (ie. USA) and half is Canadian. The Canadian part is particularly beautiful and isolated. The water is clear and fairly well unpolluted. Water visibility is usually very good - 20 metres is common. Being a lake the water temperature can be cold - especially in winter when it is usually ice covered. In the summer the surface temperature can reach 20 Centigrade, but as you descend below the thermocline temperatures can drop to 4 Centigrade. The weather conditions are unpredictable - serious storms and fogbanks can happen quickly. As a result the lake contains over 500 wrecks, most of which are still undiscovered. The wrecks range from wooden schooners that sank in the early 1800's through to recently wrecked freighters like the Edmund Fitzgerald. Because of the cold fresh water, the preservation of these wrecks is superb. Lake Superior does not have any zebra mussels which means that the outlines of the wrecks are still quite obvious. The lake supports a quite extensive range of fish life.

The American part of Lake Superior has a number of underwater preserves within which it is relatively easy to dive wrecks - Munising (Alger County), Whitefish point, Keweenaw, Marquette, and the famous Isle Royale. On the Canadian side, Thunder bay has a flourishing diving community. Unlike the southern shores of Lake Michigan both shore and boat diving are catered for. However, there are some restrictions for all.

• In many places, diving is only done in season. This is because the winters are ferociously cold and only the hardy and committed few would want to dive in ice covered water. Most diver operations cannot make a living unless they diversify into other areas. What often happens is that dive shops down south (ie. Detroit or Chicago) will book a boat for a weekend. This deters casual weekday diving even when conditions are good.

• The northern lakes lie in fairly isolated areas which limits diving resources such as nitrox, recompression tanks and many other basic services.

• Isle Royale is a National Park which means that diving is subject to some serious restrictions. This is a great pity since there are some seriously good wrecks here. American National Parks mean business. In 2001 it appears that only 2 dive boats have the authority to convey divers to dive sites within the park - only 500 divers visit Isle Royale each year. And they have to book up well in advance. Some locals refer to Isle Royale as "Iron Rule" where tree huggers and eco-nuts are all the Park is interested in. At Grand Portage we saw the 2 substantial dive boats moored up mid week. What a waste!

Despite these problems we found that it was easy to do a number of different dives. Before we left the UK we had a number of email contacts that helped us to arrange diving in most places that we visited. Prices were fairly reasonable (30 British pounds per boat dive on average), and the professionalism of all the dive operations that we visited was obvious. Everyone wanted to help us to get some good dives in. Indeed in Canada, a dive shop in Thunder Bay arranged for us to meet an engineer who had driven over 100 miles for a business meeting with his inflatable in the back of his truck. He allowed us to take his boat out into the bay to dive a wreck even though he had no idea where it was.

We took most of our dive equipment with us so it was straightforward to hire tanks and weights wherever we went. Although we took our logbooks with us, most dive operations assessed us on the spot and in some cases only required us to sign indemnity forms. Canada, in particular, valued our BSAC qualifications and spoke highly of the quality of BSAC training. We found that diving practices around the Great Lakes matched our own except that we dive with the metric system and there was a tendency to decompress at 10ft rather than 20 ft. Deco diving was not encouraged. 

Diving the Great Lakes is rather different to the seawater that we're used to. 

• There is a thermocline in many (but not all) places. The biggest swing was from 19C to 6C - seriously cold. The nice thing is that you have a Turkish bath to look forward to as you ascend above the thermocline. But don't think that all Great Lakes diving is cold. It just depends where you dive.

• Much less obvious life. No crabs to nip you and no seaweed to cover the more shallow wrecks. There were fish and crayfish but not as extensive as those in seawater.

• Although there are currents in some sites they are largely gentler than those in tidal waters. 

• Most wrecks were buoyed which meant that it was much easier to go down the shot, dive the wreck and up the shot at the end. These wrecks felt more self contained than most of the seawater wrecks that we are used to.

• Visibility in most sites was excellent apart from silt stirred up by other divers.

So where did we dive?

 

Munising

First stop was Munising where we dived a couple of sites within the beautiful Alger County Underwater Preserve. Munising used to be a major iron ore smelting port so that many ships came to load and unload. Bad weather caused some of these boats to founder and sink. We dived a couple of them. Peter Lindquist of Shipwreck Tours (906-387-4477) was the dive operator. Peter has been in Munising for many years and provides a first class service. Most dive resources are available apart from nitrox.

The Murray Bay wreck was superb. This is a 2 masted schooner built in 1860 and lost in 1883 carrying iron ore. She lies upright in 10 metres and is in an excellent state of preservation. She is entirely wooden and although her masts have gone the rest of the boat is in good shape. The cargo hold is virtually intact and it is possible to penetrate below the decks and swim up through the wreck. The rudder is immense, and you can sit on the stern and hold the rudder post and imagine that you are sailing this beautiful ship over the water. The bows are also a lovely sight to see. There is a wooden barrel on the deck that predates the boat and was apparently a whiskey barrel that a local fur trapper gave to a hostile Indian party when they approached too near to his family.

The Smith Moore was a steamer that sank in 1889 and lies upright in 27 metres. We passed through the thermocline on this wreck so it was cold. But a beautiful wreck with lots of atmosphere. There is a lot of machinery on the decks and the hatches give some good swim throughs despite some of the sand filling. Within the boiler house you can see the tops of the cylinders of the steam engine.  At the stern there is some wooden railing that makes you think of pirate ships and Captain Hook. This wreck oozes atmosphere.

The Manhattan was less impressive unless you are into boat construction. The Manhattan was a 250 ft wooden steamer that struck a reef out of Munising and sank in 1903. The wreck is pretty well smashed up. Lots of wood and nails. Her rudder still exists as do some masts.

 

 

Copper Harbor

Copper Harbor is a beautiful place right at the top of the Keweenaw peninsula that juts out into Lake Superior. It is very isolated and despite its name it supports a quite exclusive holiday place. Not expensive, but exclusive to those who appreciate its beauty and isolation.  The local dive shop (A Superior Divers Center - 906 289-DIVE) is run by Jake Anderson who was most helpful. The dive centre is well kitted out apart from nitrox. Owing to our time schedule it was not possible to book a dive boat out to dive the popular Mesquite wreck. Jake suggested that we do two shore dives at the nearby Eagle Harbor.  

Eagle Harbor lies about 20 miles away and is another lovely spot to visit. Lucky families were having beach barbecues.

The Traveller was a 200 foot sidewheeler that burned and sank in 1865. She lies in under 8m of water close by the eastern side of the harbor. It was very easy to kit up on the shore and swim out to her using Jake's directions. Despite the depth there was a lot to see. The hull and keel are torn apart and there was lots of wreckage in the sand. An ideal "pottering about" wreck and one that clearly showed what ice damage can do to a wreck. There were also lots of colourful stones strewn around.

The Gazelle was another sidewheeler that went down in 1860. This wreck lies in the harbour entrance and to find it meant following an underwater cable that crossed over the wreck in 6m. It is quite an atmospheric wreck although all the superstructure has gone. We could see 2 mast holes, cleats and many other fittings. It was easy to imagine being on board of this boat many years ago.

 

 

Thunder Bay

Thunder Bay is a quite large city on the Canadian side of Lake Superior. In many ways it resembles an American city but despite the excellent shopping it is an architecturally flat and spread out place. We found an excellent diving shop run by Wally Peterson at Thunder Country Diving (807 623 6550). All diving facilities plus nitrox. Wally is a most accomplished diver, instructor and "fixit" man. We had hoped to maybe dive Isle Royale but everything we had seen and heard told us that this was impossible. We needed to have booked up a year in advance. Wally said that it was possible but not with our schedule. At short notice he arranged for us to dive the Howard. 

The Howard was a 100ft wooden tugboat built in 1864 that had been around the lakes a bit but eventually sank in 1921. She lies on her starboard side quite broken up in 20m of cold, clear water off Victoria island near to the USA-Canadian border. Lots to see - propeller, rudder, 2 boilers and a single piston engine with all the piping still laid into her decks. A very strong wooden hull. Off the wreck the lake bed descends down quite rapidly to 40m. There's more wreckage to see down there. A very photogenic dive but the water was cold.

 

 

Jackfish Bay

Jackfish Bay is very isolated. It lies about 100 miles east of Thunder bay and is just about the most northerly part of Lake Superior. When we visited it in late August it was beautifully sunny, warm and calm. In the winter it would be entirely snowbound. There are no diving facilities here so it was fortunate that we had arranged things with Wally in Thunder Bay who supplied the tanks, weights and boat via a friend of his.  

We came here to dive the Rappahannock which was a 300ft wooden steamer that sank in 25m of water in 1911. The wreck lies upright and is in good shape with some excellent carved wood that supports the stern covered walkway. The holds are open and tempting although there is some serious silt inside them. The bows are very impressive. 

To get to this wreck is not straightforward. Although a shore dive is possible it is better to take a boat out from the nearby Jackfish Lake, go through a narrow culvert under the railway line and head out into the bay until you are under the high-voltage power line. We found a diminutive bottle buoy that helped us to find the wreck.

 

 

Mackinac

Mackinac is not in Lake Superior. The Straits of Mackinac separate Lake Michigan and Lake Huron so it is a busy waterway. There are lots of wrecks here that stretch back over 150 years. Mackinac Island is now a very popular tourist resort so there are a lot of facilities in this area. We stayed in St Ignace - apparently America's third oldest town. There is a big bridge that crosses the Straits and around this bridge there are a lot of shipwrecks. We dived 4 wrecks in the Straits. All of them were excellent. 

We dived with a group of divers from Macoma Scuba from Detroit (810-558-9922). They used a boat the Rec Diver which is usually based in St Ignace. This is a big dive boat - the largest that we'd seen around the Lakes. On our first day there were 14 divers on board with plenty of support and guidance. Good professional dive facilities - but no nitrox.

The Cedarville was a 600 ft freighter that sank after a collision in 1965. It lies on its starboard side in 30m although the highest point is at 10m. The vis was excellent as we traversed the decks and holds that still contain huge loads of calcite. There is a huge loading crane on the lake bottom. On the bows is a most intact pilothouse which it is possible to penetrate. This wreck was a lot of fun to dive and is a good example of what dangers the Great Lakes still give to shipping. 

The Eber Ward was a 200 ft wooden steamer that got gashed by ice in April 1909. She lies upright in nearly 40m of water (34m to her decks) and is a superb sight to see. All her superstructure has gone but her decks are in good shape with lots of machinery, winches and holds. She has an intact rudder post and a propellor. There are many swim throughs that can be done, but at this depth time is limited. it would take quite a few dives on this wreck to appreciate it properly. The Eber Ward is a most wreck like wreck and it was a privilege to dive her. 

The Maitland sank in 1871. She was a 3 masted barque bound for Buffalo from Chicago when she collided with another boat in what were apparently good conditions. The wreck lies nearly upright in 27m of water and although her superstructure has gone there is lots to see over the well preserved decks and holds. The rudder lies twisted hard to port, frozen in the position that the crew were trying to take before collision.

The Sandusky is something else. An amazingly intact wooden brig lying upright in 25m of water with a 40ft bowsprit still stretching out, 2 wooden stock Admiralty type anchors (one still attached to her gunwales), winches, a capstan and a rudder post with rudder still attached. Rails, deadeyes, masts and mastholes. Part of her deck is collapsed but she is still amazingly shipshape. She has a famous ramshead figurehead that was nearly stolen by divers in 1988. What makes this wreck more special is that she was built in 1848 and mysteriously sank in 1856 - before the American Civil War. This wreck is history come to life.

 

 

Diving the Great Lakes is special. The cold water and lack of tides helps to preserve the wrecks. Divers are encouraged to not take anything off the wrecks - a policy that is enforced. The result is wrecks that are interesting and worth looking at. They are certainly good examples of the shipping heritage of North America. 

There are many other places in the Great Lakes to dive. Apparently there are over 4000 wrecks spread over the 5 Lakes. We would have liked to dive Isle Royale - but this requires prior booking and planning. Maybe in the future these wrecks will be made more accessible. Whitefish Point would be another good area to dive, as would places in Lake Huron. 

Boat diving in the Great Lakes only really happens during the season and on weekends. The idea of chartering a boat for a week's diving is not common. Usually it is best to prearrange diving with a dive shop down south. But Thunder Bay in Canada is very flexible. Just ask Wally.

Books that are very useful with lots of pictures and plans are:

• Harrington, Steve (1998) - Divers guide to Michigan - Maritime Press - 0-9624629-8-5

• Kohl, Chris (1998) - The 100 Best Great Lakes Shipwrecks (Volume 1, Ontarion, Erie and Huron) - Seawolf Communications - 0-9681437-2-5

• Kohl, Chris (1998) - The 100 Best Great Lakes Shipwrecks (Volume 2, Michigan and Superior) - Seawolf Communications - 0-9681437-3-3

Richard Knights and Malcolm Rahn - Sept 2001