Канадын шумбагчдын баг Онтарио нуурын ёроолоос 1917 онд живсэн гэж таамаглаж байсан хөлөг онгоцыг хайх явцдаа бүрэн бүтэн хадгалагдсан хоёр шувтаргат дарвуулт онгоц илрүүлжээ.
Торонто хотын орчимд, 300 гаруй фут (ойролцоогоор 91 метр) гүнээс олдсон уг хөлөг нь хоёр мачт нь босоо чигээрээ үлдсэн, маш сайн хадгалагдсан байдалтай байна. Шумбагчдын баг шилэн кабелийн судалгааны үеэр илэрсэн объектыг шалгах явцдаа уг олдвортой таарсан бөгөөд анх таамаглаж байсан 1884 онд баригдсан “Rapid City” хөлөг онгоцны шинж тэмдгийг агуулаагүй байна.
Трентийн их сургуулийн археологич Жеймс Коноллигийн тайлбарласнаар, хөлөг дээрх олсны бэхэлгээ, жолооны хүрдгүй бүтэц, 1850-аад оны үед түгээмэл болсон төв хавтангийн винч зэрэг эд ангиуд байхгүй байгаа нь уг онгоцыг 1800-1850 оны хооронд баригдсан байх магадлалтайг харуулж байна. Энэ үеийн Их нууруудын усан онгоцны бүтэц түүхийн хувьд хангалттай баримтжуулагдаагүй байдаг тул уг олдвор нь судалгааны чухал ач холбогдолтой юм.
Онтариогийн шумбагчдын зөвлөлийн ерөнхийлөгч Хейсон Чак уг олдворыг Их нууруудын бүсэд ховор тохиолдох бүрэн бүтэн байдалтай хэмээн тодорхойлсон байна. Хэдийгээр хөлөг онгоцны насны талаар эрдэмтэд одоогоор эцсийн дүгнэлт гаргаагүй байгаа ч багийнхан нарийвчилсан хэмжилт хийх, зураг авах болон модны дээж цуглуулахаар дахин очихоор төлөвлөж байна. Одоогийн байдлаар хөлөг онгоцны модон эд ангиудыг “Quagga” хэмээх түрэмгий төрлийн хясаа бүрхэж байгаа нь цаашид гэмтээх эрсдэлтэй байгаа тул судалгааны ажлыг шуурхайлах шаардлагатай байгаа аж.
Дэлгэрэнгүйг эх сурвалжаас харах
↓Эх сурвалжийг нээх ↓
A Canadian dive team searching Lake Ontario for a shipwreck lost in 1917 instead found a remarkably intact two-masted schooner that may be about a century older. The vessel sits upright more than 300 feet below the surface near Toronto, with both masts still standing.
The team had gone down to inspect an object spotted during a fiber-optic cable survey between Buffalo and Toronto. At first, experts thought the anomaly might be the Rapid City, a schooner built in 1884 that sank in 1917.
Once the divers reached the lakebed, though, the ship did not look like what they had expected. Several parts of its design appeared to come from an earlier era, possibly between 1800 and 1850, a period of Great Lakes shipbuilding that is still poorly documented.
The Wreck Was Almost Completely Intact
The schooner remains upright on the lakebed, its shape largely intact and both masts still in place. According to a release published by the Ontario Underwater Council , the schooner was found in an “extraordinary state of preservation for a Great Lakes vessel.” The wreck still retains its overall shape, while both masts remain upright above the deck rather than lying broken on the lakebed. Heison Chak, president of the council, said the sight caught the divers off guard.
“It took us a few moments to calm ourselves down because it’s overwhelming finding a pristine wreck that is all in one piece,” he told the CBC. “It’s got its shape. It hasn’t broken down both masts. We saw two — both masts were standing, which is pretty rare.”
Chak also added that kind of preservation is rare. On many wrecks he has visited, masts have fallen or been damaged by passing boats, anchors, or divers.The depth may have helped keep this schooner out of reach.
“This is deep enough that I don’t think anyone’s been on it,” he said. “I think we’re the first group and that joy was just overwhelming.”
Tiny Details Point to an Older Shipwreck
The biggest surprise was not only the condition of the vessel, but the way it had been built. James Conolly, an archaeologist and diver at Trent University, said some of the ship’s features were not common after the middle of the 19th century. Ships built after the 1850s usually had metal rigging, while this schooner appears to be fitted with rope rigging. He explained that detail “immediately puts it into, likely, the first half of the 19th century.”
The divers also noticed that the ship had no wheel on the aft deck. It carried an early type of windlass and appeared to have no centerboard winch, which became a standard feature on Great Lakes ships during the 1850s. Those clues led the team to believe the schooner may have been built sometime between 1800 and 1850.
That was a busy period for trade on the Great Lakes, as more ships began carrying goods across the region. Many were lost to storms and accidents, but detailed records from the era are limited. That makes an intact wreck especially valuable to researchers trying to understand how these vessels were built.
The Age Is Still Not Settled
Not everyone is ready to confirm the team’s early estimate. Charles Beeker, a Great Lakes shipwreck expert and professor at Indiana University, told the same source material that it is still too early to say with certainty that the vessel came from the first half of the 19th century.
“I don’t want to diminish the value of it,” Beeker noted. “They may be able to identify the vessel, maybe identify the shipyard, and that would be useful to look at an actual intact vessel on the bottom to compare to what little we do have in terms of drawings, and tonnage and information from these vessels, and the older you go, the less information we have.”
The team now plans to return for more detailed measurements, photography, and wood sampling. Those steps may help researchers establish when the schooner was built and clarify its place in Great Lakes history.
The site is already changing. Layers of invasive quagga mussels cover much of the woodwork, obscuring some of the ship’s details. As Conolly explained, wrecks that might once have remained intact for centuries may now have only decades before biological and environmental forces cause further damage. For now, though, the schooner remains unnamed.
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