Isle Royale National Park occupies an entire island in Lake Superior, a wilderness area 45 miles long and two to six miles wide.
Though the park's founders did not have shipwreck preservation in mind when they created the park in , they could have not designed a better underwater museum had they tried. It was once listed by a major U. They include wooden and metal passenger-package freighters and bulk haulers, plus another dozen or so small craft built by local craftsmen-a sort of vernacular version of naval architecture as interesting as the larger ships to archaeologists and ship buffs.
The fresh, frigid, deep waters ensure spectacular preservation of organic remains on these sites. The wooden vessels have been pulled apart by storms, ice-heaving, and salvage tugs, but most of the metal steamers are virtually intact.
The water below 50 feet deep never varies in temperature. Along much of the shoreline of the Archipelago, the ice stacks up in noisy, crusty piles grinding against the rocks until spring. Through this process, ice-gouging occurs as deep as 40 feet on some of the shipwreck sites we have studied. Obtain diving brochures from the park staff at the ranger station.
This park usually maintains an experienced cadre of divers and it is worth seeking their advice. This is a popularized version of a major technical volume on the shipwrecks of the area that was generated by the National Park Service underwater team that both your authors are part of.
