During a family trip to Point Farms Park to the north of Goderich, Ontario, in 2023, Lucas Atchison was using a metal detector that he received as a gift for his birthday, when he found something big and old.
“We were on the beach, we took our metal detector, and as soon as we set it up, Ding! It was a peak of the shipwreck,” said Lucas, who is now 10 years old.
Remember to alert his father, who at first thought that the spike could have been used to tie a boat. But Lucas was not convinced, and the couple began to dig deeper. What they found were more peaks attached to wood.
“Then Dad told me: ‘Lucas, this is a shipwreck,” the boy explained. “When I woke up that morning, I didn’t expect to find a wreck!”
Father Jason Atchison said they reported the discovery of provincial parks, and then communicated with the Ontario Marine Heritage Committee (OMHC), a non -profit voluntary group dedicated to recording and preserving marine history.
This week, with Lucas closely watching the work, the excavation in the shipwreck began with an OMHC team digging to see exactly what Lucas found.
The excavation work begins
The approval process for Cavar takes time, with the regulatory requirements that must be met, according to marine archaeologist Scarlett Janusas and the marine historian Patrick Folkes.
First they met the Achisons in the autumn of 2023 on the beach to show them where they should be looking. Then, on Wednesday, a group of OMHC volunteers arrived with heavy machinery supplied by the provincial park, and then changed to shovels, leaves and brushes to see what the sand had buried.
Until now, Janusas said they found a smaller part of the ship than they expected, but determined that the section was Marcos from the side of the ship.
“We had double frames, which seems to suggest that it was a stronger boat and we believe it was a schooner,” Janusas said. “A schooner is usually a two -mast sailboat, usually wood.”
Maybe San Antonio?
There was not enough of the ship to definitely determine its identity, but Folkes says that a candidate is the schooner St. Anthony.
“[It] He was shipwrecked in October 1856 on a trip … from Chicago to Buffalo, New York, with a grain load, “he said.” It was described that he had gone to the ground to four miles north of Goderich, which fits where this rest is, and this would only represent a very small piece. “
The volunteers will complete the scale drawings of the shipwreck, including a plan view (from above) and profile (side view) of the wreck.
Folkes says that nineteenth -century insurance requirements would specify how many fasteners, or peaks, should be placed in the frames and what a distance. Those details, he said, will help determine the age of the ship.
What comes next could be surprising. The volunteers will recover the ship to preserve it.
“We return to the hole, we buried and create an anaerobic environment, that is, without oxygen, so you have no parasites there or any other organism that eats or destroys the remains,” said Janusas.
“It is not a perfect solution, but it maintains the structure of that ship for at least another 50 years.”
