Stuart Carlton 0:00
Teach me about the Great Lakes. Teach me about the Great Lakes.

Our first guest in this draft is the one and only teach me about the Great Lakes, Hall of Famer herself, the original inaugural member there, Babe Ruth and Marianna Rivera of teaching me about the Great Lakes. It's Stephanie Gandulla who is, are you still the Resource Protection Coordinator at the Thunder Bay National Green sanctuary? Or what does it do these days?

Stephanie Gandulla 1:57
Yes, well, that is still my title, for sure. And I am lucky that I get to do all sorts of different things. But you know, it's all about the shipwrecks,

Stuart Carlton 2:06
all about the shipwrecks at Thunder Bay. And we're also joined today by a new guest, Kevin Cullen, who's the executive director of the Wisconsin Maritime Museum, which we talked all about in episode. I don't actually know. I didn't look it up, but we'll put a link in the show notes to where it is. The title of the episode was 70 scouts and an enclosed tube. I remember that because there was internal discussion as to whether or not that should be the title. And the answer is, of course, that should be the title anyway. Kevin, welcome to our show. Thank you so much.

Kevin Cullen 2:31
Thank you. It's great to be here. Excited to be involved with this as a my other hat being an archeologist and an amphibious one, so we interpret shipwrecks here at the museum as well. So we say we have a better marine sanctuary. Then, then Stephanie's over there in Thunder Bay. So just saying, It's

Stuart Carlton 2:52
getting real. Yeah. So you are a marine archeologist in our maritime what is it we talk about this anytime I hear it. It's a cool sounding job in the world.

Kevin Cullen 3:00
Yeah. Well, so my, my role is as an amphibious archeologist. I like to say, because I do terrestrial and underwater archeology, so foot on land and a foot in the water, and then somehow interpret that in a museum context. That's, that's,

Stephanie Gandulla 3:14
I like that amphibious. I've not, I've used maritime, underwater, marine, but had not heard amphibious. That's good.

Kevin Cullen 3:21
I'm coining it starting here, just so you know.

Stuart Carlton 3:25
All right. So coined, there it is. Fantastic. Amphibious archeologist, super well, we are here to draft, for those who have not been here for one of our drafts, which we do every quarter without fail. That's just like a fantasy sports draft, or, I guess, a Real Sports Draft, except we are picking, this time we were picking Great Lakes shipwrecks, shipwrecks in the Great Lakes. So we are gonna go and we are gonna pick a ship wreck and then talk about it for a minute. And once that shipwreck is picked, though it's off the board, so we encourage poaching. Can't be picked twice. And of course, there are no winners or losers in the shipwreck draft, at least as far as our guests know now, I have a custom R script that I've designed to help randomize the order, and so I have run that custom R script, and then in what can only be described as an amazing coincidence, the Hall of Famer herself, Stephanie gonjula, is going first. Stephanie, what is your first pick in the first round? Oh,

Stephanie Gandulla 4:18
my goodness, this is exciting, because I have a whole bunch of picks, but I have to pick one. You're telling me the only one. Okay, I am going to land on the shipwreck mana handset.

Stuart Carlton 4:32
Shipwreck mana handset.

Stephanie Gandulla 4:35
It's got some great stories behind it. All right, let's

Stuart Carlton 4:38
hear about the shipwreck Mana hinsit

Stephanie Gandulla 4:40
Certainly, certainly, there's many reasons why I chose it, but let's start with the very first reason, and that's because of its accessibility. It is probably one of the most visited sites within the 4300 square miles of Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary, which, if the listeners did not know, is in northwestern Lake Huron off the shores of. Northeastern Michigan, but the Monahan said it's only about 17 feet deep, and so you can visit it. You don't have to be a technical diver to visit this shipwreck. You can visit it via paddle board, a kayak, a sailboat, a fishing boat. You can see it from the surface, beautiful, crystal clear waters, and the glass bottom boat that operates here out of Alpena, visits it, visits it on a daily basis. So lots of opportunities to check out this time capsule that sank in 1907 1907

Stuart Carlton 5:31
so little over Oh, increasingly, over 100 years ago. So what happened? How did the Mon handset set? What kind of ship was it exactly?

Stephanie Gandulla 5:37
Well, here's another reason why it's my first draft pick. And that's because it tells a really pretty typical story of a shipwreck in the Great Lakes. So it was a wooden freighter and hauling a few 100 tons of coal, and it was November, and so dodging a terrible storm out in Lake Huron. And like many ships would do, they wanted to duck into the lee of an island, Thunder Bay Island, in this case, to ride out the storm. So they they ducked into the lee of the island to to get out of the winds, dropped anchor, and about midnight, they thought they were safe, and all of a sudden, somebody dropped a lantern in the engine room. So I mentioned they were carrying coal. They were wooden ship. So you can guess what happened. It burned, but everybody, luckily was able to escape. Actually, there was a life saving station crew there on Thunder Bay Island. Another great, great another awesome, great lakes story to tell, there with the life saving station crew, and they rode out in the middle of the night. So imagine this a dark, pitch, black, stormy, stormy night, and these guys hop in their their life safe saving boat, and they row out and they save everybody from from the the burning wreckage of the Mona Hansen. And in fact, last little cool tidbit about that story is one of the sailors was sleeping soundly when the fire erupted and he jumped into the water. The newspapers tell us totally naked.

Stuart Carlton 7:03
Whoa, hold up there.

Unknown Speaker 7:06
That's right. November 1907,

Stuart Carlton 7:09
would focus stands on that one. Well, that's something else. And so people can see this if they go to Thunder, bang, right. That's exactly right. Maybe not recommended. If you're gonna dive in November, they don't need to totally recreate the circumstance, I suppose the mana handset. Look at this. Oh yes. And if you go to, all right, we're gonna put a link in the show notes. And this is the one where you have these cool kind of multimedia exhibits, right?

Stephanie Gandulla 7:31
Yes, we've got interactive virtual models of the Monahan said, lots of great imagery and underwater video. So you can, in fact, you can visit that shipwreck site without even leaving your home.

Stuart Carlton 7:43
Oh, even better, that's my favorite way to visit a shipwreck site, one of several good ones. And it also demonstrates, I'm looking at these pictures now, the thing that I learned from you, Stephanie and your very first appearance, which is a cool thing about Great Lakes shipwrecks, is, because it's fresh water, they break down a lot more slowly anyway, right? They get much more preserved often, even if they did catch on fire because they were filled with coal. All right. Pick number one is in the books, and it's a strong one. It is the shipwreck mana handset, which you can see at Thunder Bay. Very accessible. That's really cool. All right, randomly. What do you know? Kevin, you were picked second by our custom our script. Kevin, what is your first pick? Well,

Kevin Cullen 8:23
I'm gonna have to go with the side. Wheel steamer Niagara. This is it off of Wisconsin port, Washington, Wisconsin. It's within the Wisconsin shipwreck Coast National Marine Sanctuary. This was as of 2022 designated, I can't say it's the newest national marine sanctuary, because I think Ontario was just recently announced. But this is a collection of shipwreck sites within the mid Lake region of Lake Michigan, here in Wisconsin, coastline that has at least 100 shipwrecks known to be within that about 1000 square miles. There's 40 documented, known wreck sites. Niagara is one of those pretty famous ones. And I think why I am so drawn to it is because we have now, not only interpreting it at the museum here in our Wisconsin shipwreck Coast exhibit, but we also have over 3000 artifacts from this shipwreck that were recovered back in the 1960s and 70s and even early 80s. Before the abandoned shipwreck Act, the museum recently took quite an undertaking to work with the private collector to attain 10,000 of these artifacts. So now we get to tell these stories, working with the Wisconsin Historical Society and and the National Marine Sanctuary to to tell the story. So what happens? It was built in 1845 and it was in Buffalo, New York. It was a big side wheel steamer, and it carried passengers and freight. And on September 24 of 1856 This was before the Civil War, obviously, it caught fire as. Was leaving Sheboygan, it was on its way south to Milwaukee and further south to Chicago. Would make, generally, these runs between Ontario on in Canada, all the way to through Georgian Bay, around the Straits of Mackinac, down the shoreline of Wisconsin. Well, it caught fire. So that's kind of why I'm choosing this one too, because of its, you know, very interesting and tragic end. Unfortunately, of the 250 or so passengers, 60 did not survive. So there was fatalities, including at least two dozen horses, as well as a huge variety of cargo that's in about 55 feet of water. It's been known. It was, it was documented first found in the late 1960s by some of the first kind of open water divers. So it's been known about it again, in that accessible dive range for open open water, after it was sort of surveyed and researched. And what's really fascinating with this collection that we have of 3000 artifacts. We're starting to paint this picture of global trade in the 19th century, and in this case, artifacts coming from the Netherlands, coming from Britain and Canada and and even now Spain, as we can tell, there's burned brass bells and even ice skates and boots. And it is. It covers the gamut from personal effects to coinage and really interesting history, though, is that Captain Fred Pabst, who became the beer Baron, as we know of past Yeah, past beer he was a first mate on a ship that came to the aid of this burning vessel of Niagara. He was aboard the traveler in 1856 and saves the captain and 11 other crew, and he has all these first person accounts of what actually took place. So it's a really, really interesting history. And again, the preservation of the artifacts and the wreck site today is tremendous. I could go on and on about the architecture of the vessel, and you know, the fact that it's the steam engine is one of the first of its kind that was also aboard a ship that was the first to transit the Atlantic Ocean. Look at that, Anna in 1818, the same lair steam engine is aboard Niagara, sitting on the bottom of Lake Michigan. So fascinating in industrial history, too.

Stuart Carlton 12:15
So when you, uh, one thing you mentioned there is your job. Part of your job is interpreting shipwrecks, right? And by that, you I mean, you mean like taking it and using it to tell stories, I assume is what you mean for the public about the history of the ship and beyond, right? What is it? How do you do that? Do you work with the historians on there? What, when, if I just found a shipwreck, like, what? Yeah, what? What would you be looking for? How do you find those stories? And

Kevin Cullen 12:40
a lot of so primary research is obviously what we'd like to go for, first, so rec reports and then secondary being newspaper accounts, any kind of, you know, artifacts are, of course, the material culture that tells, you know, the real story of who these people were. You know, there's, there's a number of ways that you can kind of start to dig into this. So I, you know, I actually, this was my curated exhibit, my last exhibit I curated as curator here before becoming director. So it is in my wheelhouse to kind of do this deep dive research, but it takes a lot of, you know, collaboration with with smart people and on all levels from the state, when the Wisconsin Historical Society's maritime preservation program, as well as the Wisconsin shipwreck Coast National Marine Sanctuary staff with us, and Caitlin and so, yeah, it kind of even researchers that have been studying this over the years. So that's kind of the beginning of it, and then getting into the newspaper accounts fascinating history that actually relates to the maritime Underground Railroad, which is its own episode, I think here where we can connect, where that we're likely in its life history, Niagara carried freedom seekers to Canada, which is interesting, because oftentimes you get the newspaper accounts, they get an abode and sail to freedom. Well, we're starting to figure out what some of these vessels were, and Niagara is clearly part of that underground railroad you

Stuart Carlton 14:00
did just talk your way into another episode. Actually waltering. So the Illinois Indian cigarette. One thing we've done is we've developed this curriculum called Freedom seekers, which is about the Underground Railroad in relationship to Natural Resources, Environment in the Great Lakes region. Cool and a one of our main co hosts on the show is Megan Gunn, and she is out there. She's at a lake right now. I assume she's diving. She might be at one of these shipwrecks. I don't know if she couldn't make it on its episode, though, but she will definitely want to talk about that. So that is very cool. I will mark that down. Mark it down. Great. Well, the audience will notice a difference in the depth of thought that goes into these picks. But that is okay. So for my first pick, I am picking the SS Bannock Fern, which I picked for two reasons? Well, three reasons. One is it was a Canadian register freighter disappeared in Lake Superior in November. You know, just don't be a ship in the Great Lakes in November, I think especially around the turn of the last century. Just some life tip at. Nice for you, but so I picked a Canadian registered and whenever I can harass Carolyn from afar, I choose to do so. Secondly, what's cool about this is that it actually sunk twice. And so that's, you know, sub optimal after the first sinking, I would probably maybe not sink again. But what do I know? Anyway, it was in leaving from Chicago, and it got like ran into a wall of one of the locks in the canal, or whatever, and it sprung a link and fell down to the bottom. It only took on about nine feet, but came to rest. Nobody died or whatever, but still, it sunk down to the bottom. And so that's not perfect. And then, and for the final voyage of the Bannockburn, I went up near Thunder Bay, Ontario, not Thunder Bay Michigan, I suppose. And was carrying a whole bunch of wheat and headed for the Georgian Bay. And there was a big, powerful winter storm. Lights went out, and the ship sunk. So it was traveling in this, this snowy, wintry, stormy night in November, the worst month for late and 19th, early 20th century ships to be traveling. And it sunk. And the other reason I chose it, though, is it has a reputation as being a ghost ship and has been known as the Flying Dutchman of the Great Lakes, apparently. And so if you are the Flying Dutchman of the Great Lakes, and you are a great lakes ghost ship. You are going to get picked as the draft. So my first pick is the SS Bannock burn, twice sunken, once shy, always a ghost. Probably out there haunting people as we speak. Excellent. All right. Round two. Round two of two. We're doing great on time. Stephanie, what you got for your second pick? Well,

Stephanie Gandulla 16:40
I happen to have a wooden schooner called the MF Merrick. Have you heard of that one? I've not

Stuart Carlton 16:47
heard of the MF Merrick. Tell Merrick. I

Stephanie Gandulla 16:51
think I'm realizing that most of my picks start with the letter M I don't know what that means, but anyway, the MF Merrick, let's hearken back to May, middle of May, 1889 and the MF Merrick is hauling a cargo of sand. And so the water is freezing. We know that it's always freezing, but it's particularly cold and it's very, very foggy. And it's the middle of the night once again, and the Merrick is steaming, sailing along. And just after midnight, they the crew hears a whistle of another vessel, and within 30 minutes, the bow of a steamer, the RP rainy appears out of the fog and smashes right into the Merrick side, so a tragic sinking right there got a big hole in the side of its wooden hull, and the Merrick sinks quite quickly, offering little chance for the crew who were below decks to escape. So five of the crew members did indeed perish. So a very, very sad sinking. Now I didn't pick it because it was a sad story. Though. I picked it because this shipwreck, the MF Merrick, was actually discovered by five high school students from Saginaw, Michigan. No one. Yeah, way. So pretty cool story about students who came in. This was in 2011 and they it was part of Project, ship hunt, was the name of it. And throw that link in in if you could, because people will want to check out that documentary project ship hunt. It's only about 45 minutes, and it tells the tale of these five high school students that came up from Saginaw, Michigan to work in the sanctuary with maritime archeologists looking for shipwrecks. And they found the MF American. They actually found another shipwreck, the Etruria, which is a massive steel freighter. These are deep shipwrecks, about 300 feet deep in northern Lake Huron. And yet, another reason I chose the MF Marrick was because we worked very hard to put a deep water mooring buoy on the Merrick. So this was just a couple years ago. We took our shipwreck mooring buoy program to the next level and got mooring buoys on some of our deepest sites. And so we've had mooring buoys on these wrecks for accessibility for for a number of years, for over 20 years, but we hadn't gone deeper than about 160 feet. We've got buoys, you know, on shipwrecks that are eight feet deep to about 160 but then when we launched this deep water mooring program. We got them on some of the deeper wrecks. So providing accessibility to these shipwrecks is one of our main goals and missions, and the mooring buoys will help protect the wrecks by you don't have the dive boats visiting, don't have to drop anchor and potentially damage a historic vessel. It also makes it much easier to find, even if you have the coordinates for a shipwreck, if you're a dive boat, you know, big expanse of water and you're looking for a shipwreck, it makes it much easier. If you've got a, you know, four foot high, big white buoy there floating in the water. And then it's a nice way of for divers to descend and ascend from from the shipwreck site, making it safer and more accessible. So. So the MF Merrick sank, tragically, May 17, 1889 with a load of sand. And you can check out project ship punch the documentary to learn more. All right, couple

Stuart Carlton 20:10
questions. First of all, May 17, that's my brother's birthday, so I'll have to let him know he was born 96 years later, or whatever, but still. All right, cool. So, all right, the most obvious what is ms stand for? Because I think I know what it stands for, but it probably doesn't stand for

Stephanie Gandulla 20:26
that. Do we know? Oh, well, now that's, I do not know. That's the name you're you're thinking like MV

Stuart Carlton 20:30
Oh, so it's not like SS, right, yeah, what that MF means? Gotcha. So it's just the name. So the rich dude who bought the ship or whatever is probably owned it. Yeah, owned it. It's probably Merrick Franklin. Merrick, that'd be my guess. But I guess that's not known for a fact. But Mr. Mr. Anyway, cool. All right, and so, so this is 300 300 or so feet underwater, which for you, was a new level of depth when it comes to putting out those buoys. Since I don't dive, you know, at best, I can get you, I could get down to the Oh, my goodness, hard to forget. I could get down to them on handset. I might be able to get down there, but, but I definitely cannot get down 310 is it hard to go 310 feet? Or is that something that you know? How old skilled a diver do you need to be to go down that very,

Stephanie Gandulla 21:17
very, very, very skilled. It takes years and years of training to and a lot of investment in time and finances, and got to be really interested in doing that, because it's a hobby to the next level, right? So there's lots of there's many people around the world, technical divers that can get to those depths. The technology is there, but you want to make sure you've got that training. I mean, years and years, it's not years and years. And like many, you could do it if you were dedicated and that's all you did. You're not okay. Well, then you can stick to the glass bottom boat Stuart, which is what most people do

Stuart Carlton 21:52
love, a good glass bottom boat tour. No, no, that's great. I'm just curious how you know. So, yeah, yeah, but that's the cool thing about Thunder Bay, is it's all there, right? That's right. Bottom boat with me to these more technical dives and that sort of stuff. So that's cool. And the other thing I noticed looking this picture, and I'm sure I noticed it before, but I've forgotten about it, is this sucker is covered in mussels. It looks like, right? Yes, do they cause damage to the ships? Is that a concern? Is there anything you're doing about it?

Stephanie Gandulla 22:15
Yeah, the mussels are such a fascinating Great Lakes story, right? They've as you very well know, they came in the balance ships of ocean going vessels in the 80s, 1980s and totally, totally changed the ecosystem. Pretty much destroyed the ecosystem, right? However, they did clear the water up and make diving a whole different experience. People talk about diving here in the Great Lakes before the mussels and a good visibility day was, you know, maybe five to 10 feet now, because of the mussels and the what they've done to the water clarity by eating everything, filtering everything is, you know, in the spring, we can have 100 feet of visibility on a good day. I'm sure Kevin has that experience in Wisconsin shipwreck Coast National Marine Sanctuary. So better for diving. It is not great for the shipwrecks, though, because they do populate structure, right? They want to grab onto something, and so they will totally coat the shipwrecks, but they and so they obliterate details that archeologists look for to you know, learn about the shipwrecks to identify them, but they're not eating the shipwreck. Like in the ocean, you'll have critters that that will actually eat wrecks, like there's one probably the most. I don't know if popular is the right word. The most ubiquitous one would be the Teredo worm, which is actually a clam, and they love to chew on and eat wooden shipwrecks in the ocean. We don't have those here. Those the mussels, Zebra and quagga will just populate those shipwrecks. And they could. The last thing they could, how they could affect the shipwrecks, is being really heavy and possibly making the it collapse a little bit sooner than it would without little shellfish on them.

Kevin Cullen 24:00
Yeah, on metal, right? You're saying it's carbonic acid. This reaction is happening now with excreting after they filter a liter a day, there's, there is this localized effect on particularly metal iron oxidization more more quickly, and aluminum, it seems like, based on some of these aircraft that have been found. So, yeah, it's a deleterious effect. That's we're still only understanding, I think, the true effects of so it's a double edged sword for divers, as Stephanie said, with visibility improving, but with that comes obscuring all the architectural features that you'd like to see.

Stuart Carlton 24:35
Yeah, what a problem. Yeah, that cleaning the water is interesting, because now Michigan and Huron or actually, actually, you know what? We haven't had in a long time, and I'm ready to give it this time. It's been a minute. We haven't had a great lakes factoid in quite some time. So we're gonna give you a great lakes factoid right now. It's a great lakes factoid, a Great Lakes factoid. It's a great factoid about the Great Lakes. Great Lakes factoid is this, and this one goes out. Our friend, Lake Superior. You can hear our interview with the person behind the Lake Superior Twitter account, which will put a link to that in the show notes, Lake Superior is no longer the cleanest and clearest Great, well, the clearest great lake that now belongs to Lake Michigan, thanks to the aforementioned quagga mussel, superior has not gotten dirtier. Michigan's just gotten cleaner, and to the point where one thing we'd like to talk about and sort of joke about on the show now is our director Illinois and Ana sea grants director Thomas hook talks about how Lake Michigan is too clean now because the productivity is down, but it does make it kind of cool for shipwrecks to a certain extent. All right. Round two. Pick two. Kevin Cullen, Wisconsin Maritime Museum. What are you going with? I

Kevin Cullen 25:39
have to go with the rouse Simmons. The rouse Simmons shipwreck, it's the Christmas tree ship.

Stuart Carlton 25:45
Yes,

Kevin Cullen 25:49
yeah. So that's because we're coming up also on the anniversary of its sinking. We're doing an event here at the museum, actually this month, on November 23 would be the 100 and 12th anniversary of when it went down in 1912 so I guess this was november of 1912 which, of course, if you think about what happened in the same year, in April that year was, of course, the Titanic in the Atlantic. So this was the Titanic of Lake Michigan. You could say it was also, you know, really a tragedy for the Christmas season for Chicagoans. These are the vessels. These were Christmas tree ships. It wasn't the only one of its kind, but it was built in 1868 as a grain hauler, carrying, you know, most of these early schooners, three masted schooners, carried, you know, in their prime days, you know, the liquid gold, or at least this the gold of the era was, was the wheat and grain. And over time, they kind of get used for for other things, bulk cargo, by the end of their lives, in this case. So from 1868 built in Milwaukee, to 1912 it was fairly old, and it was coming from farther north, northern Lake Michigan in the UP Thompson, Michigan in the Upper Peninsula, with a bunch of lumbermen. It was their last run of the season, and they were heading back to Chicago with a load of Christmas trees, 1000s of Balsam trees, when they were last sighted, essentially flying a distress signal off of two rivers Wisconsin, the Kewaunee life saving station, actually just further north, saw it with a distress flag, so it was actually flying upside down and half mast, and so they knew something was going on. And you know, they were never seen again. The Coast Guard basically went out, the life saving service, out of two rivers just north of Manitowoc, went looking for this distressed vessel. Some say there was a storm that caused it to go down. But in fact, research has shown, and archeology has shown that actually it was likely the case, that it was a case of an old vessel meeting its end, and all lives were lost, including the captain, Captain Santa, as he was called, Herman schuneman, and so 16 fatalities, unfortunately, on that wreck. Now it was, you know, for weeks later, there were trees washing ashore on land, and, you know, there was even the wallet washed ashore. His wallet came ashore years later. So there was all of this kind of mystique and drama around it. Again, it was the year that Christmas trees weren't being able to be purchased off of the boats down in Chicago, at the pier, you'd go down, you'd pick out your Christmas tree right from the deck of the schooners and take it to your house. Well. So that was, you know, why it kind of left on as a as kind of this legendary Christmas tree ship, and it was not known where it was, was ultimately wrecked, uh, until really fishermen out of two rivers Wisconsin within the National Marine Sanctuary eventually. But fishermen went out there and they were pulling up, you know, what looked like a mast and things like that. And so that they tipped off an early diver, a very famous kind of shipwreck hunter in the 70s named Kent Bell Richard, who is still alive, and who's actually going to be here for this event coming up at the museum on November 3, who found the shipwreck. He eventually went down. He went, went down with a this was when zero visibility before quagga mussels again, there was he had a homemade flashlight. It was getting dark. He was by himself. He went, dropped down, and figured out he was on a schooner. Came back about a week later, and it was determined that they found the famous Christmas tree ship. So it's a really, really interesting story. We have at the museum again, a number of shipwreck artifacts that were recovered, both by Butch Klopp within this Butch collect, the Klopp collection and Bell Richard, there are even light bulbs. This is what's so fascinating. We have fully intact light bulbs from 1912 This is the beginning of electrification, and they would have lit these light bulbs when they got to the shore, when they had shore power, when they were underway. Of course, they would have had oil lamps while they were underway. So it's a fascinating story of kind of. Overcoming, kind of years of service on the lake, but then ultimately succumbing to, in some ways, kind of greed, because they were pushing their luck with the last time of the last runs of the season, kind of a ship that was probably could have used a bit more maintenance. And eventually all lives were lost and and the story lives on, though, at this Christmas tree ship. Ralph Simmons, so there you go. That's my pick. What a

Stuart Carlton 30:26
good pick it is. And that was before they did send their movies in, like if they had movies, then they would know to never go on that one last mission, right? But

Kevin Cullen 30:33
that's it. That seems to be the case, yeah. Alright,

Stuart Carlton 30:36
our last alright. Last pick is miraculously, for whatever reason, nobody knows why, not yet picked, despite it being the genesis of this whole shipwreck draft. And that is the Ironton, which up until recently, was maybe the newest discovered shipwreck, although it has since been eclipsed, I guess. And so the Ironton, this was something they recently found, and just off of Thunder Bay marine sanctuary, there was a part of your sanctuary. Where was it? Stephanie, I can't remember where they found it.

Stephanie Gandulla 31:07
Well, goodness, yes, yes, I we discovered such a big deal. Yeah, you took one of mine, but I'm glad you did. Well, I post

Stuart Carlton 31:14
yours, but it's the second round, so we had to. So yes, with the iron, though, here's the thing, if I can get my tab note, but I'll tell you even more about it, to tell you the truth, but the iron tin was a ship that was sailing. It was a schooner that would haul things like corn and grains and stuff like that liquid gold. Some would call it the liquid gold of the era across the Great Lakes. And what's interesting about the Ironton was it set out. This was September, not November, when it sunk. And what happened was it crashed into another boat, the Ohio. I think the weather turned bad, and it was being towed lightly. Didn't have any, it didn't have any it didn't have much away a cargo. And it's being towed by a boat called the Ohio, not the Ohio by the Charles Kershaw is what was towing it. And they saw the Ohio floating around, and they said, Oh, rats, there's Ohio. So they caught the Ironton robe, at least. This is one, one version of what might have happened, and the Ironton was drifting, and the it in the Ohio crashed together, and the Ironton sunk. And the tragic story here is when they found or when it sunk, they couldn't get the lifeboat cut of loose for whatever reason. And so the lifeboat is still sitting there, attached by a rope to the Ironton, and that story actually made a contemporary news report where one of the two survivors talked about how the lifeboat was still attached. And so that was a tragic shipwreck story. And I'll get to the reason I brought it up in just a minute. But I'm curious. Stephanie, when somebody finds a new shipwreck, first of all, it's exciting news for y'all right, but what do you what are the steps till they get that integrated into what you do at the sanctuary?

Stephanie Gandulla 32:45
Well, that's an excellent question, and it is very exciting. And a reminder is that we've got many shipwrecks left to discover. So we have identified 100 Ironton was number 100 within the 4300 square miles of sanctuary waters, but we think there's at least that many more to find. I bet Kevin has a similar story on the Lake Michigan side. So an exciting part of our job, and Kevin discovered one recently as well. Just exciting part of our job is going out and continuing to map the lake bottom and look for shipwreck. So mapping is a big part of what we do here in the Great Lakes as maritime archeologists, and it's also an important part of managing the Great Lakes. So there's lots of other reasons to map, for navigation, for understanding fish habitat, for understanding the geology at the bottom of the lakes. So important to map, and a wonderful side benefit is discovering shipwrecks, but I'm not getting to your question, which is, well, what the heck do we do when we find a shipwreck? And so our mission, like we've talked about, is to make these sites accessible. This is the shared public's history, so we definitely want to make them accessible, and so we document them as fully as we can and then work hard to make them accessible and put buoys on them so people can visit these shipwrecks, whether they're visiting them virtually through maybe looking through virtual reality at a photo model of a shipwreck, or whether they're a technical diver and they can get hundreds of feet deep to see them, but it is indeed A process that we have to go through to responsibly, scientifically document them, and then we can release them to the to the public.

Stuart Carlton 34:28
Interesting in a future episode. For some point the you talked about how you're doing a virtual reality and stuff like that, and I bet, like virtual reality, AI, I bet all of this is changing the way that shipwrecks are found, interpreted and visited. So that'd be a cool conversation. We don't time for that today. The real reason I brought up the iron 10 is that did inspire this whole draft because I saw that wreck, and I'd never been in a place where a shipwreck had been discovered before, not that I'm in Alpena, but close enough for government and and so I was so inspired, and I've heard there's big money in shipwreck back. Ballots. This is what I've been told when you move to the Great Lakes, there's big money in shipwreck ballads. And so I was so inspired by the shipwreck Arlington that I wrote my own shipwreck ballad, which I will now play a clip of here, and you can download for free if you go to I don't know either the teach me about the Great Lakes YouTube page, if that even is a thing anymore, or at Stuart carleton.bandcamp.com, and this is the world premiere, except for one other little time, and I will play an excerpt of the demo, because I need to take another run at the vocals, because I'm a bad singer. So FY, I mean, I'd say I am not being modest. You're thinking, Stuart, you're being modest, not being modest. And this was a bad version of bad singing. But I'll play the first couple of seconds here. Ah, set sail for Master Bucha out of cloud in the sky, down for market Michigan to haul some corn and some rock light to scooter to

cool. Anyway, Mr. Carlton.painting.com, download it for free, free because I don't actually need all that fancy shipwreck ballad money. I mean, I do, but I suspect that it's not on the table for me. All right, excellent. Well, that is going to do it for the two rounds of our draft. But before we wrap up, let's have a lightning round here. So we are going to go lightning round. Give me one or two picks that were on your list and didn't make it, and we're going to start with you. Stephanie,

Stephanie Gandulla 36:42
oh, goodness, the pressure's on. Okay, I'm going to say the WP rend, which is just off the shores of Thunder Bay here. And I'm choosing that one because it's one of our main sites where we do our fresh water acidification sampling, so truly interdisciplinary project at a shipwreck site doing certification sampling about climate change. Super cool science happening here in the sanctuary.

Stuart Carlton 37:09
Excellent. Kevin, anything left on your list?

Kevin Cullen 37:12
Oh, there's a few, but I guess I'll just have to say, well, Edmund Fitzgerald, because everybody's going to say that 1975 it's superior. But my other Lake Superior, one that I think is worth mentioning, though, is Kamloops, which is a phenomenal SS. Kamloops, it was a made it built in in 1924 and it's a fascinating story off of Isle Royale, one survivor, essentially that froze to death on Ill Royal. It's sitting in deep, deep water too, sitting on its side, on the edge of basically a giant escarpment cliff, full preservation. I mean, it's carrying all kinds of bulk cargo with shoes and so on. And there's even supposedly a quote, unquote, a mummy on board. So it's one of the crewmen is still down below and has undergone a process of saponification, turned into, basically a soap mummy, and is translucent skin still still there as a human, human remains. So it's, you know, it's a grave site, but a huge and really interesting history and fully preserved, one of the best preservation shipwrecks on the Great Lakes. SS, Kamloops, thank you. In 1927

Stuart Carlton 38:28
27 Alright,

Unknown Speaker 38:29
Can I do one more?

Stuart Carlton 38:32
Yeah, I said, do two. I said, do one chose to do, but one

Stephanie Gandulla 38:38
I've my second one, then would be the Montana, and that is a wooden steam barge that sits in about 65 feet of water just at the mouth of Thunder Bay. One I've dove it lots and lots of times. I love it, and it's got its big steeple engine standing upright about 30 feet in the water column. So super cool, recreational diving depths. Awesome shipwreck site. But my favorite thing about it is there are always burbit hanging out at the Montana I don't know if you you, of course, you know what burbid are. Burbid are my favorite. Well, verbit and sturgeon. I don't know which is my favorite, but lots of burbid hang out there. We

Stuart Carlton 39:13
talk about burbid all of the time on Ask Dr fish, which is on hiatus right now, but that's what Titus alheimer and with Dr Katie O'Reilly, a super fun streaming show that we do that's on a little bit of a break, but it'll be back. I'm not worried about that at all. Very cool. I've

Kevin Cullen 39:27
got a bourbon story. I'll let's hear it all right, so it was a night dive in the Straits of Mackinac when I first started diving over 20 years ago. And so pitch black go down inside of the Eber Brock Ward, which is a wonderful historic shipwreck in the straits and and it was a penetrating Wreck Dive at night, so we all of our flashlights and the glow sticks in our tanks anyway. So I'm going back to the back of the vessel, and all of a sudden a bur bit came out of the blackness right over my head, and it made me almost spit out my regulator, because I was so. Freaked out. I thought it was a ghost coming at me. But, of course, they love just, you know, swimming by, but it came literally grazing the top of my head. I'll never forget that. And it's, yeah, that's its residents, I guess at the bottom of the Straits of Mackinac. There

Stuart Carlton 40:14
we go. The other funny story about burbid that we bring up every now and again on Ask Dr fish is that they sing during the most specialist moments of their lives. Isn't that exciting thing about burpett, yeah, not when their kids are born. I guess when they're conceived anyway. Very cool. All right, I don't I'm not as shipwreck expert, but one other one that stuck out for me when I was doing my extensive research is the SS, I think it's an SS, it might not be that. It's probably not an SS, le Griffon. It's French. Le Griffin, we would say in New Orleans, where I'm from, maybe the first shipwreck on the Great Lakes. It disappeared in the 17th century, right? It was a French ship, and I believe that it is unfound as of today, at least, that is my understanding. So, Holy Grail, the Holy Grail. Look at that. We've been watching a lot of money Python with my kids right now, so I've got a lot of that on my mind. But that not that particular Holy Grail. Anyway, this is great. Now we are late on time. I apologize for this. So Stephanie, you have answered these questions a bunch, but Kevin, you have not. And the reason that we pull you in to this is not to draft ships. Nobody cares about drafting ships, well, except me and but it's asking you two questions. The first one is this, if you could have a choose to have a great donut for breakfast or a great sandwich for lunch, which one would you choose?

Kevin Cullen 41:34
Ooh, me, I'm kind of a savory kind of character, so I'm gonna go with sandwich, but maybe not a traditional sandwich, okay, like a non, if that, if that can be, you know, a thing, but we have in Manitowoc here, really great. We have a lot of nice little restaurants, but Ryan's on York makes the forbidden non, and that's with, you know, black rice, cabbage, jalapenos, pickled carrots, green onions and aioli. So it's a veg you know, you can put chicken in there too, but I'm all about fusion. So living in India for a year, I try to find things that have, you know, unique flavors, and when you can wrap it into a non why not?

Stuart Carlton 42:19
I agree that is excellent. We've gotten a couple minutes walk recommendations, but not this one. So that is good. I'm writing it down as we does sound good. Stephanie, you're a multiple time sandwich person. Are you still a sandwich person? We thinking,

Stephanie Gandulla 42:35
Yeah, but maybe I'll be a little different. I was just thinking, you know, I could do a breakfast sandwich. Or if I have a new favorite donut, I am usually more of a savory person myself. But my new favorite donut is at the cops and donuts store here, which is pretty new here in Alpena, and it's a cherry donut. So Michigan theme, Michigan cherry donut with chocolate frosting.

Stuart Carlton 43:00
Yeah, go for it. If you want to check those out, you can go to Alpena, Michigan. We should go anyway. Are y'all having the film festival

Stephanie Gandulla 43:09
this year? Oh, yes, indeed. In fact, I'm actually in the middle of programming the 13th annual film festival, which is happening January, 22 through the 26th and boy, have we got some amazing films. One that I'll mention, which you may have heard of, is all too clear, and you can guess what that's about. It's something we were just talking about, the invasive muscles, brilliantly filmed, Great Lakes documentary, all too clear at the Thunder Bay International Film Festival. You gotta come that's

Stuart Carlton 43:39
ready. I need to reach out to them, because I met the producer, I met the team behind that at the International Association for good lakes Research Conference in Toronto. I think it was where I met them a couple of years ago and they were working on it. They have really cool technology. This is definitely worth going to see. I haven't seen the movie yet, but seeing the cameras and stuff that they were using and some of the stuff, I bet the footage is just awesome. So, yes, go to Alpena and go check that out. Excellent. Well, Kevin Cullen, Executive Director, Executive Director of the Wisconsin Maritime Museum, and Stephanie Gonzalez teaching me about the Great Lakes Hall of Famer and whatever that title was that you have where you get to do a little bit of everything at the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary, including programming the world's best January in frigid Michigan Film Festival that you can possibly find. Thank both y'all so much for coming on and teaching us all about the Great Lakes. Thank you, Stuart. All right, now we'll clear out with the Guardian that was the best captain of the Guardian the horn for this, I'll be honest. Think I won another draft. Starting to get a little bit boring, winning this frequently, but that is what we do. You. Teach me about the Great Lakes is brought to you by the fine people at Illinois, Indiana Sea Grant. We encourage you to check out the cool stuff we do. At i i sea grant period org and at i l i n, Sea Grant on Facebook, Twitter and other social media. Our senior producer is Carolyn Foley, and teach me about the Great Lakes is produced by Megan the lake lover gone miles Ethan Chitty is our associate producer and fixer for super fun podcast. Artwork is by Joel Davenport, and the show is edited and awesome by Sandra subota. If you have a question or comment about the show, please email it to teach me about the Great lakes@gmail.com. Leave us a message on our hotline. Everybody's doing it, except for you. 765, 496, iisg, that's 4474 you can also follow the show on Twitter at Teach Great Lakes, but like the Ironton, that's a real wreck over there right now. Either way, thanks for listening and keep grading those lakes you

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