Shipwrecks
equipped with powerful Sartek HID video lights. For me that first dive on the Scourge was memorable for the 20-foot (6m) visibility, which was the best of any dive I’d made during the three-season project. The footage we shot of Scourge that day, with both of us lighting for each other, was the best of the project. The time we spent filming the ship’s figurehead of Lord Nelson was almost magical, one of those once in a life time moments. Unforgettable. The dive went off without a hitch. The second, and what proved the last dive on Scourge, took place on September 2. Things didn’t work out quite so well. One of those dives where things go sideways and though everything worked out well in the end, the issues took our focus off the objective.
In short order, the video we had
shot of Hamilton and Scourge was made available to the City of Hamilton. It was the only new documentation of the wrecks in 20 years. The gesture went publicly unacknowledged.
Heritage Treasures Both Hamilton and Scourge sit upright and are intact though their timbers are water logged and spongy to the touch, which no one knew because neither ship had ever been touched by a human hand since their sinkings. At the time of our dives quagga mussels covered mostly the upper facing side of most surfaces, especially metal, such as the tops of cannons. This bi-valve mollusk is non-native to the Great Lakes and is widespread, even in this deep water. Our team saw no human remains at any time. We agreed from the beginning that nothing would be touched or removed and we saw no
Tey are deep and challenging. For us they were our technical diving Mount Everest…nothing since compares
evidence that other scuba divers had been on the wrecks prior to our dives in 2000-2002. And to the best of my knowledge no other technical divers have dived them since. If that’s the case then only five divers have ever visited Hamilton and Scourge. Many more humans have walked on the moon, and that’s a shame. These beautiful wrecks are like the sunken pirate ship a child imagines. They sit squarely on their keels, cannons run up and ready to fire, swords and boarding axes crossed over each gun port, ready for the crew to repel boarders. All that’s missing is a treasure chest guarded
Movie in the Works
‘Shipwrecked on a Great Lake’ tells the story of the Hamilton and Scourge from the viewpoint of Canadian-born, turned-American sailor, Ned Myers, a seaman on the Scourge and one of few survivors. He’s played in the film by British actor Jack Manser. To make the movie Peter Rowe and his production team recreated the storm that sank the two ships, utilizing a Toronto wave tank and La Revenante, a replica 19th Century schooner in Lake Ontario. The film’s historical content draws from an interview between Ned Myers and American writer James Fenimore Cooper, and an original song ‘When an East Wind Blows’. The film also covers the the search and discovery of the ships led by Dr. Daniel Nelson in the 1970s, and the expedition that explored them during the 1980s, 1990 and into the 2000s. It culminates with the exclusive filming of the first ever magnetometer investigation of the two shipwrecks conducted by Parks Canada this past June.
Shipwrecked on a Great Lake is financed by a number of foundations, led by the Ontario Trillium Foundation. It will be shown in numerous public venues in Ontario and New York State next summer, including on a water screen at a lakeside Mississauga park that looks out to the deep site of the shipwrecks.
44 Magazine
Descent into darkness and generally poor visibility
by a giant octopus. For all that’s real about these wrecks, and perhaps for some of what isn’t, we wanted to dive Hamilton and Scourge. They are deep and challenging and for us they were our technical diving Mount Everest. Nothing we’ve dived since compares.
These treasures, I believe, have been lost to humanity by a misguided policy that’s been successful at isolating them from the diving public. They’ve been relegated to obscurity and largely forgotten. In their deep-water graves they are out of sight and out of mind and they continue to decay, suffering the ravages of time and encroachment by an ever-thickening layer of quagga mussels. To the best of my knowledge a feasibility study begun decades ago to consider options remains incomplete to this day. The city’s stewardship is marked by inaction and in my view this is a violation of the public trust. If this doesn’t change the wrecks will be lost forever. On this bicentennial occasion I say it’s time for action.
A Public Plan
Here’s what I think should happen. Hamilton and Scourge should be accessible to SCUBA enthusiasts, protected under the Parks Canada marine park model long in place at Tobermory. First, a consideration of the war grave question. With respect, most ship sinkings are disasters, and most involve fatalities. To ban diving for this reason, warship or otherwise, is to ban diving on just about all shipwrecks in the world. In my diving
Photos: Scott Stitt
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