Last week, the Lake Guardian left the port of Oswego, N.Y., preparing to sail into the nation’s past. The research vessel, which belongs to the Environmental Protection Agency, is exploring the Lake Ontario National Marine Sanctuary, a 1,722-square-mile expanse that stretches from the shoreline of New York State to the (watery) border with Canada.
There, 63 ships rest beneath hundreds of feet of cold, clear water. Many had sailed in the service of nation-building some time during the 19th century, only to succumb to bad weather, rough seas, the vagaries of fate.
Now, the maritime archaeologists aboard the Lake Guardian — experts with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Ocean Exploration Cooperative Institute, students from the University of Rhode Island — aim to create detailed three-dimensional computer models of the wrecks, starting with about a dozen ships.
They will do so with the help of Rhody, a remotely operated vehicle, or ROV, outfitted with a high-definition camera that has provided astonishing images on which those models will be based. (On Friday morning, the team began a YouTube livestream, accessible in the link below, of a vessel marked on a previous survey. In an early morning email, the researchers said they were “blown away and stunned by what we have found.”)
“There’s lifetimes worth of research potential here,” Benjamin Ioset, a NOAA maritime archaeologist, said as the expedition commenced. A native of central New York, he began diving in these waters when he was 14. “I’ve always been in love with this region,” Dr. Ioset said. Now, he is a conduit to that region’s prosperous, industrial past. When the Lake Guardian returned briefly to port on Thursday in order to host a visit from Oswego High School students, he was inspired by the teenagers’ curiosity, their amazement at the secrets buried in the familiar lake. Shipwrecks, after all, belong in the Mediterranean or the Arctic … don’t they?
In fact, the Great Lakes make for a world-class shipwreck museum, albeit one that can be reached only by competent SCUBA divers or ROVs like Rhody, depending on the wreck’s depth. “These are very clear waters — you have great visibility of some of the most intact and preserved shipwrecks in the entire world, and some of the oldest,” said Michael R. Pittavino, curator of the H. Lee White Maritime Museum in Oswego. “The deep, cool water of the Great Lakes really slows down the degradation of these vessels.”
In fact, just three days into the trip, the Lake Guardian’s sonar system discovered a new shipwreck, the marine sanctuary’s 64th: probably a commercial vessel from the early 19th century, though Dr. Ioset said it would take “a little bit of detective work” to nail down the craft’s identity.
For the most part, the goal of the trip is not to find new ships but to use Rhody’s powerful cameras to capture clear images of ones already known: the Farmer’s Daughter, possibly the oldest ship in the sanctuary; the steam-powered tugboat Philip Becker; the Roberval, a steamer whose steel hull proved no match for an enormous wave that sank it in 1916.
Distance and weather, among other factors, provide challenges of their own. The expedition’s second day was devoted to fixing a technical issue. Then, it took longer than expected to get into position to investigate the Philip Becker, which sank on Nov. 17, 1879. Along with several other ships, it had made its way down the St. Lawrence River, only to be caught in a blizzard on the way to Oswego.
Rhody’s dives last four to six hours and produce images of exceptional clarity and detail. It doesn’t hurt that the ships are well preserved, save for the quagga mussels that seem to cling to every surface. The pilot house and ship’s wheel on the Philip Becker’s deck were clearly visible. Lit by Rhody’s cameras, the ship emerged from the darkness with haunting immediacy.
The compact contours of Rhody, designed by the Norwegian firm JM Robotics, allow for unique vantage points. It managed to peer inside the hold of the Farmer’s Daughter, where Dr. Ioset said he could make out ceramics, farm tools and barrels that appeared “intact.”
“It feels like the team onboard is hitting our stride,” Jason Fahy, an ocean engineer at the University of Rhode Island and the expedition lead, wrote in an update on the expedition’s fifth day, shortly after the survey of the Farmer’s Daughter. “From the vessel crew to our most junior undergraduate, everyone has been caught in a state of wonder watching the ROV feed.”
The project is the culmination of an effort by local officials to gain recognition for their stretch of the Great Lakes. A year ago, the Biden administration designated a large stretch of eastern Lake Ontario a national marine sanctuary, which confers certain protections — and a measure of clout.
Local and state officials hope that the mostly commercial ships now submerged in hundreds of feet of freshwater spur interest from history buffs and recreational divers. They point to Thunder Bay, a marine sanctuary in northern Michigan whose shipwrecks attract thousands of diving enthusiasts each year to the tiny town of Alpena. Lake Champlain, which straddles New York and Vermont, has also become a diving destination. (Unsurprisingly, shipwreck exploration makes for compelling YouTube videos.)
“The sanctuary holds enormous potential to elevate Oswego as a premier destination for history enthusiasts, divers and visitors eager to explore the rich heritage of the Great Lakes region,” Oswego’s mayor, Robert A. Corradino, wrote in an email.
Oswego was once the nation’s main hub for lumber. “Shipping on the Great Lakes was a huge thing,” said Lisa M. Glidden, director of the Great Lakes Institute at SUNY Oswego. That was especially the case as the population of American cities on the East Coast exploded in the 19th century and demand for raw materials like lumber surged. “But coming across that lake can be really dangerous,” Dr. Glidden said. “Even today, people mostly stay close to the shore.”
Waves on the lake are shorter than those on the ocean but more frequent, Mr. Pittavino, the Oswego curator, explained. “You have a much more condensed wave pattern that has much more of an ability to destroy a vessel,” he said. Nor could a ship “outrun a storm on Lake Ontario like you could on an ocean,” he added. “There’s really nowhere to go.”
Technological advances and renewed public interest have led to what some have called a “golden age” of sea-wreck exploration. At the same time, the warmer waters and more turbulent storms caused by climate change could cause sunken ships to deteriorate at a more rapid pace. And the relative accessibility of SCUBA diving could lead to vandalism and looting.
“These will eventually deteriorate,” Dr. Ioset said. “We may have better tools in the future,” but waiting too long may leave little to explore. “Now is really the time to try to preserve them, because once these are damaged, we can’t get them back.”
The expedition comes as scientific budgets, including at NOAA, are facing severe cuts. Mr. Fahy, who is also a retired Navy commander, argued that shipwreck exploration of the kind he and Dr. Ioset were conducting remained a sound investment, since it was “refining” technology that could have applications across a variety of sectors, including the military.
And the wrecks speak to the parts of American history that President Trump seems to favor: commerce, manufacturing, expansion, trade. “These provide irreplaceable, tangible connections to our history,” Dr. Ioset said. He did lament that “we don’t make shipwrecks like we used to.” But that’s for the best, he quickly added.
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