Maritime historians make big strides in locating shipwrecks near Ephraim and Algoma

EPHRAIM, Wis. (WFRV) – Maritime historians are in a race against time to locate, and hopefully preserve, the shipwrecks sitting beneath Wisconsin's waters.

"Underwater archaeology is always a race against time. All of these items are perishable, our Great Lakes shipwrecks aren't going to be there in 100, 150 years," Wisconsin Underwater Archaeology Association president Brendon Baillod said. "Because the bay is so shallow and the bottom is really rock and cobble and ice comes in here so heavily, it breaks these ships up. We only have small pieces of them left now. In 20 years there will be nothing left. And so this is a rare opportunity we have to record where these wrecks were and what's left of them before they're gone, forever."

Baillod and fellow WUAA member Robert Jaeck spent Friday and Saturday searching the waters of Eagle Harbor in Ephraim for wrecked ships and docks, and they believe they found the remnants of at least five of each.

"We work with the community to give them further context of their maritime history here. We found many of the local docks that used to be here that started the community, that was the lifeline to the world before roads were established here," Jaeck said. "Pretty much a hard rock bottom and shallow. Most of this stuff is just being ground up. So there's not much left. That's why it was real important we get here now to do this because maybe in 20 years there will be almost nothing left."

With a side scanning sonar, the duo was able to map the entirety of Eagle Harbor in high resolution. It is a focal point for maritime historians due to the importance that the waterway played in the Industrial Revolution with a high amount of boat traffic.

"We were really interested in Eagle Harbor here because it's a pretty small body of water with a pretty high number of shipwrecks. Historically, we know of five sailing vessels that were lost here in this small expanse," Baillod said. "We lost touch with that maritime past, and the role that Wisconsin played in the Industrial Revolution, powering the United States. That's why they call this the Rust Belt, because all of these raw goods came from these states via the Great Lakes."

Door County may have more miles of shoreline than any in the country, but Kewaunee County also has a prominent place in shipwreck lore. WUAA has located three shipwrecks since June 2023 off the coast of Algoma, beginning with the Trinidad last year and the Margaret Muir in July.

But the third shipwreck, the John Evenson, a steamer tugboat, had been missing for 130 years since it sunk in 1895. Once Baillod and Jaeck set their minds to it, though, they found it within five minutes in about 50 feet of water.

"We were just so excited we thought 'we think we really found this' and we hadn't even started our first pass yet," Jaeck said. "I mean, talk about lucky."

"All of a sudden, Bob says 'boiler.' And I go, 'what?' And I see this big thing shaped like a mailbox crawl across the sidescan sonar, and I was like 'that can't be anything else, that's got to be a boiler,'" Baillod said "I'm like 'this can't be, we couldn't have found it in five minutes.' But we did."

Baillod thinks that the Evenson was so difficult for others to find was because of the false accounts that the ship's owner gave all those years ago after it sunk.

"The owner didn't want the tug raised," Baillod said. "It was worth more to him on the bottom than it was on the surface. And so he intentionally gave misinformation to the news."

The hope is for the Evenson and other shipwrecks to be added to the National Register of Historical Places, which would grant the sites extra protection and allow scuba divers to visit.