Ghost Ships Of The Great Lakes Part-2

Acclaimed underwater photographer and videographer Becky Kagan Schott continues her tour of some of the most-memorable shipwrecks of the Great Lakes

Photographs by Becky Kagan Schott

The Eber Ward: A Snapshot of History

The Eber Ward is a popular recreational dive in northern Lake Michigan. Built in 1888, it was a 64-metre-long wooden freighter with two decks, steam propulsion and a fore and aft compound engine. The ship was carrying a cargo of corn from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Port Huron, Michigan.

The captain thought he could navigate through slush, which normally wouldn’t have been a problem, but ice tore open the wooden bow on the morning of 20 April 1909 and the Eber Ward sank in ten minutes, taking five lives.

Also read: 130-year-old lake steamer found 200m deep

The wreck sits upright in Lake Michigan in 29m-45m of water. The stern has an impressive propeller. Peering inside, you can see the engine and intact wood panelling. This wreck has excellent swimthroughs with beautiful blue light pouring into the cargo holds, where you can see self-unloading machinery and other artefacts.

The bow is photogenic with several anchors, including a unique mushroom anchor on its port side. The gaping gash from the ice that sunk the ship is on the left side of the hull and is large enough for a diver to easily swim through.

Also read: Quake hid shipwreck – but science found it

Inside the bow is a crew member’s boot, an ominous reminder that men were working on this ship and scrambled to save their lives the day it went down.

Did you know?

SS Kamloops was a 76-metre Canadian lake freighter that was part of the fleet of Canada Steamship Lines from its launching in 1924 until it sank with all hands in Lake Superior off Isle Royale, Michigan, United States, on or about 7 December 1927.

The Eber Ward is a popular recreational dive in northern Lake Michigan. Built in 1888, it was a 64-metre-long wooden freighter with two decks, steam propulsion and a fore and aft compound engine. The ship was carrying a cargo of corn from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Port Huron, Michigan.

The captain thought he could navigate through slush, which normally wouldn’t have been a problem, but ice tore open the wooden bow on the morning of 20 April 1909 and the Eber Ward sank in ten minutes, taking five lives.

The wreck sits upright in Lake Michigan in 29m-45m of water. The stern has an impressive propeller. Peering inside, you can see the engine and intact wood panelling.

This wreck has excellent swimthroughs with beautiful blue light pouring into the cargo holds, where you can see self-unloading machinery and other artefacts.

The bow is photogenic with several anchors, including a unique mushroom anchor on its port side. The gaping gash from the ice that sunk the ship is on the left side of the hull and is large enough for a diver to easily swim through.

Inside the bow is a crew member’s boot, an ominous reminder that men were working on this ship and scrambled to save their lives the day it went down.

The Chester Congdon: A Tale of Two Halves

In Lake Superior, Isle Royale National Park has ten shipwrecks, including the Chester Congdon, which was a 162-metre-long steel freighter that sank 106 years ago after hitting Canoe Rocks. The entire crew was saved and salvage started until a gale came through and broke the ship in half two days later, sending her plummeting to the bottom.

The bow broke from the stern and lies in just 30m of water facing upwards. The stern hit the bottom so hard it forced the rudder through the hull and sits at a steep incline from 27m-64m.

The bow has an intact wheelhouse that’s very picturesque and there are some penetration opportunities inside. If you swim the perimeter, there are pieces of twisted and mangled steel scattered around the rocks from the impact.

The stern lies at such an angle that you’re following the massive cargo holds downwards almost as if you’re on a wall.

At around 57m, the massive rudder comes into view and it’s hard to believe you’re seeing the massive rudder pushed up through the fantail stern of the ship. It’s quite a sight and shows how powerful the impact must have been when it hit bottom.

There is a double wheel and just behind that, the huge and very open engine room. Because the ship was salvaged, there isn’t much left inside, but there are some gauges on the wall and an American flag painted on the side of the engine.

Mysterious SS Kamloops: Cargo and Tragedy

In the same area lies the SS Kamloops. What happened to the Kamloops is still a mystery because she disappeared in December 1927 with her entire crew. In May 1928, fishermen found a handful of the crew on land, but they had died of exposure.

One young woman named Alice wrote a message in a bottle that was found by a trapper the following year saying ‘I am the last one left alive freezing and starving to death on Isle Royale Lake Superior. I just want my mom and dad to know my fate’. It wasn’t until 1977 the wreck was discovered and dived for the first time.

She sits in 83m lying on her starboard side. Her cargo can be seen in the holds, from wire fencing, to crates of shoes and toothpaste, but the most-interesting cargo are the wooden boxes of Life Savers.

The Life Saver packaging can still be read, but the candy inside has dissolved. Due to the cold water and deep depths, these remain preserved.

On the stern you can see the beautiful ship’s wheel along with binnacle, telegraph, and propeller. Looking down there is wreckage and cargo everywhere, and a single lifeboat on the bottom. One of the spookiest parts of the ship is its engine room, where one of the crew members remains are.

Immersed in History: Diving the Great Lakes Wrecks

Diving these shipwrecks and returning to the beautiful islands, cliffs and shorelines brings their stories alive. When thick fog and storms roll in and the fury of Lake Superior can be witnessed, you can’t help but gain a lot of respect for those sailors that were navigating these areas without the technology we have today.

Superior truly has some of the most-superior sites and seeing these wrecks in their preserved state is like going back in time and seeing some of the best underwater museums in the Great Lakes. It’s against the law to take anything and most of these wrecks don’t see many divers each year.

Every year new wrecks are being discovered by using the latest side scan technology and with advances in diving technology. There are so many places left on our planet that have been explored, but diving these wrecks makes me realize there is still so much more to be explored.

There are thousands of ships still missing that were never seen again, and no one knows what happened to them.

The award-winning wreck photography maestro

Becky Kagan Schott is a five-time Emmy Award-winning underwater cameraman and photographer whose work appears on major networks, including National Geographic, Discovery Channel and Red Bull.

She is co-owner of Liquid Productions Inc, and specializes in capturing images in extreme underwater environments, including caves, under ice and deep shipwrecks.

Her projects have taken her all over the world, from the Arctic to the Antarctic, and many exciting locations in between.

Recently Becky organized and led a successful expedition to be one of only a handful of people to ever dive inside a glacier. She’s filmed new wrecks, cave exploration and even diving cage-less with great white sharks.

Her experience working in remote locations around the world and artistically capturing extreme environments has earned her a reputation of being able to produce quality work in tough situations.

Her biggest passion is shooting haunting images of deep shipwrecks in the Great Lakes. She combines her artistic style with powerful stories of tragedy, mystery and survival to ignite the viewers’ imagination.

She’s constantly pushing the limits of technology and trying new creative techniques to capture the beauty of the underwater world.

In the past few years, she’s also been working on producing high-quality 3D photogrammetry models in the Great Lakes, which showcases shipwrecks in a new way for divers and nondivers to explore.

Becky has been actively diving for 29 years and technical diving for 24 of them. She has been an instructor for two decades and is currently an active TDI Mixed Gas Rebreather Instructor.

In her spare time, she’s participated in dozens of exploration projects around the world, which earned her a place as a Fellow in the Explorers Club, and in 2013 she was inducted into the Women Divers Hall of Fame. Liquid Productions

We design, manufacture and retail scuba and rebreather equipment. We have fully equipped test and certification labs, and can pressure test large items in our vacuum chambers, as well as run fully automated leak test and dive simulations down to 400m. Our EMC and EMF lab is filled with state-ofthe-art equipment for testing electromagnetic compatibility and electromagnetic fields. We also have a large in-house laser for cutting and engraving on plastics and metals. www.narkedat90.com

This article was originally published in Scuba Diver UK #79

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