After more than 60 years resting on the bottom of Lake Superior’s Thunder Bay, a group of shipwreck hunters recently found the remains of the freighter Scotiadoc, which sank more than 850 feet below the water’s surface in 1953, making it the deepest shipwreck ever discovered in the Great Lakes, according to a recent report in Minnesota’s St. Paul Pioneer Press (twincities.com).
According to the article, Scotiadoc was initially launched in 1904 as the Martin Mullen, making frequent trips to and from Duluth, Minnesota-area ports. In 1947, it was sold and renamed Scotiadoc. The vessel departed Port Arthur, Ontario with a crew of 29 and nearly 260,000 bushels of wheat on the afternoon of June 20, 1953. In thick fog and driving rain, Scotiadoc collided with another passing freighter, the 451-foot Burlington. It was determined that both boats made crucial navigating errors that resulted in the accident, according to the Pioneer Press report.
Burlington plowed into the starboard side of Scotiadoc near the stern. Burlington survived the crash (even plucking some of the Scotiadoc survivors out of the icy lake waters to safety), but Scotiadoc did not. She descended into the dark depths of Lake Superior until her discovery in September.
Photo courtesy of Thomas Manse
