JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
In the last several months, two more-than-a-century-old shipwrecks were discovered in the Great Lakes - the SS James Carruthers in Lake Huron, one of the largest missing ships in the region, and the Frank D. Barker in Lake Michigan. They are two and a record number of shipwrecks that have been found in North America's giant freshwater lakes in recent years. To find out why these discoveries are happening so frequently nowadays, we called up maritime archaeologist Tamara Thomsen. Tamara, welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
TAMARA THOMSEN: Oh, thanks for having me.
SUMMERS: OK, so just to get us started, it is estimated that there are more than 6,000 shipwrecks in the Great Lakes. How drastic is the increase of their discoveries in these past few years?
THOMSEN: Oh, my goodness, it's been accelerating. So we have a lot more shipwrecks that are being discovered every single year. I've worked this job for 22 years, and it used to be that we would have one or two, maybe three on a good year that was reported. But in our record years, we've had 17, 18, 25 shipwrecks reported, and it's a struggle to keep up.
SUMMERS: What can you tell us about what caused the spike?
THOMSEN: Well, it's a number of factors. So first of all, increased press and awareness. We also have a lot of efforts that have been put forth by state and federal agencies. So I work for state government, Wisconsin Historical Society. But there are - the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, in recent years, has established three federally designated sanctuaries. So public awareness is at a peak about these resources, and they're very visually appealing. The water has cleared up since invasive species have come into the Great Lakes - zebra and then quagga mussels. So where it was that the water was maybe about 10-foot visibility, now, on a bad day, you're seeing 100-foot visibility. So the ability to see down through the water and to notice a shipwreck that you're paddling over, especially in these shallow situations, has increased.
But also accessibility to technology. So it used to be that fish finders just could see the bottom, and they didn't have the capability of side scanning. And now, almost every boat or - that you get will have some sort of side scan sonar ability on it and the ability to recognize submerged structure on the bottom. So we're getting a lot of reports of these shipwrecks from fishermen as well.
SUMMERS: What can you tell us about the impact that climate change has played and what researchers and people have been able to find?
THOMSEN: Well, we're seeing that there's an increase in storms, and also, those storms that are hitting our shores are in increased intensity. So we see a lot of sand movement, especially here along the Wisconsin coastline. And so that exposes shipwrecks that are buried on our beaches or in shallow water as these giant waves come and crash and wash out the sand.
SUMMERS: Well, what can you learn from each new discovery? What can it teach us?
THOMSEN: Oh, my goodness. So each one of these shipwrecks is really a time capsule. They represent this point in time when a ship went down. It may have been carrying a particular cargo. It tells us about shipboard life - what the crew would have carried with them and what went down with the ship. And in some cases, these are burial sites. So this is the, you know, last place that, you know, men and sometimes women were working on these vessels, and they unfortunately lost their lives. So we have to be very respectful of these places. And in Wisconsin, we treat them as archaeological sites, so they're protected under the law from looting and damage and given, in some cases, protection under our burial laws, as well.
SUMMERS: Tamara, I wonder, it sounds like you're so passionate about this. What is one thing you would want us to know about these sorts of discoveries that maybe wouldn't be evident for folks who don't follow them as closely as you do?
THOMSEN: Oh, they sometimes have the most interesting and rich histories. So, you know, it may be the scene of a disaster, and - on face value. You see when it went down and what it was carrying and if there was a human life lost. But it's the little stories that are associated with it. You know, if there was a dog that was on board and, you know, how they rescued the dog. And, you know, these type of little, little Easter eggs that are throughout the history that we get to unravel when we're doing this work.
SUMMERS: Tamara Thomsen is a maritime archaeologist at the Wisconsin Historical Society. Thanks so much for being here.
THOMSEN: Oh, thanks for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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