Lake Superior Trials

<v Mike Simonson>Coast Guard reports from satellite photos show Lake Superior, Huron, and Erie completely <v Mike Simonson>frozen over and Lakes Michigan and Ontario, about 50 percent ice covered. <v Mike Simonson>And that's the first time that's happened in 15 years and the earliest these freshwater <v Mike Simonson>bodies have been ice locked in recent memory. <v Mike Simonson>It's making the winter of 94 a banner year for that strange and hardy group of ice <v Mike Simonson>anglers dressed in plaid shirts and wool pants and hats with ear flaps. <v Mike Simonson>Skip Smith and two of his buddies drilled holes and set down line seven <v Mike Simonson>miles offshore of Cornucopia this past weekend on Lake Superior. <v Mike Simonson>He says it's always a thrill and sometimes it's even dangerous. <v Skip Smith>If ice does shift and that opens up a crack between you and shore - that's what <v Skip Smith>most often happens. People don't fall through the ice. <v Skip Smith>You know, the ice moves. And now you got one hundred yards or two blocks of open water <v Skip Smith>to get through. <v Speaker>[Engine revving] <v Mike Simonson>Walking seven miles across the moonscape-like ice isn't practical for Smith and <v Mike Simonson>his friends, so they use a propeller driven wind sled on skis, a jarring

<v Mike Simonson>ride dodging ice ridges and ruptured ice shards sticking out of this frozen lake. <v Skip Smith>Pretty rough stuff right here. <v Skip Smith>It's getting better because there's snow on it and that pushes it a little bit. <v Mike Simonson>Smith hasn't seen ice like this since the 1970s. <v Skip Smith>The thicker ice and the safer ice means we can get to more places. <v Skip Smith>Other years, this is the first year really out of the last three or four that we can even <v Skip Smith>go fishing on the Cornucopia. <v Skip Smith>This ice isn't very safe here because there's big water just on the outside. <v Skip Smith>There's no islands to hold it in. <v Skip Smith>So we can go to spots that we haven't been able to ice fish for five years maybe. <v Mike Simonson>While the fishing is good for Skip Smith, this freeze up sends shivers down <v Mike Simonson>the spines of port directors like Davis Helberg in Duluth. <v Mike Simonson>He remembers the disastrous beginning of the 1972 shipping season, <v Mike Simonson>a year that also saw widespread freezing. <v Davis Helberg>It gathered ice in huge rafts run on top <v Davis Helberg>of the other, just outside of the Superior end of the loose harbor entries. <v Davis Helberg>The ice builds up to such an extent that in early June

<v Davis Helberg>we had ships stuck every imaginable which way, just outside of our <v Davis Helberg>entries, immobilized. <v Mike Simonson>But Helberg says ice is a fact of life here. <v Davis Helberg>I don't know, a month from now if we're gonna be seeing bluebirds or polar bears. <v Davis Helberg>Uh, weather changes. <v Mike Simonson>While the Coast Guard's been sending out cutters to free ships on other Great Lakes, Lake <v Mike Simonson>Superior won't see shipping at least until March 25th. <v Mike Simonson>The official start of a shipping season delay this year could mean shortages in iron <v Mike Simonson>ore for steel plants, grain for flour mills and coal for utilities across the <v Mike Simonson>country. So the job of breaking this ice will fall on Coast Guard, warned Officer <v Mike Simonson>Steve Serena Shoulders. He and his crew of 50 on the cutter Sundew in Duluth <v Mike Simonson>have their work cut out for them, so to speak. <v Mike Simonson>But Serena doesn't mind the extra duty that breaking this ice pack will require, he <v Mike Simonson>says. Icebreaking is an art. <v Steve Shoulders>Course, the backing and ramming, that's that takes a while. <v Steve Shoulders>There's some other little things that make it go easier, what we call sallying the <v Steve Shoulders>rudder. What we do is we shift the rudder from one side to the other, left to right.

<v Steve Shoulders>That's what that does - it gets the ship to rockin'. And so that it kind of it- and when <v Steve Shoulders>it hits the ice, it gives a little more force from side to side to help keeping us from <v Steve Shoulders>getting stuck and helps break through the ice a lot easier. <v Mike Simonson>While Serena doesn't have to clear any paths for ships this time of year, he does have to <v Mike Simonson>worry about folks like Skip Smith who might get stranded on an ice pack that <v Mike Simonson>breaks up without warning. <v Steve Shoulders>The only safe ice is the ice you put in your glass pot. <v Steve Shoulders>So I'm not one for wanderin' around on the ice. <v Steve Shoulders>I think runnin' around on the lake out there this year. <v Steve Shoulders>You have to be careful because you never know exactly where the thin stuff is going to <v Steve Shoulders>come in. <v Mike Simonson>Still, ice anglers will continue to go out, especially with this rare total freeze <v Mike Simonson>up of Lake Superior. It's a chance to brave the elements, catch lake crowd and <v Mike Simonson>get away from it all. Far enough away that they can be grumpy old men if they want. <v Ice Angler>Do we look like three grumpy old men? <v Ice Angler>[Laughs] [?inaudible?] <v Speaker>Right now, the spear is stuck.

<v Speaker>It's just a matter of getting out to get to it. Hopefully we won't get stuck too. <v Speaker>[?inaudible?] [overlapping chatter] <v Speaker>[Boat horn blares] <v Mike Simonson>The ice is heavy this spring and this day a brisk nor'easter is blowing <v Mike Simonson>more of the ice against the western end of the lake. <v Mike Simonson>That's why the thousand footer Edgar B Spears trapped in ice 17 miles <v Mike Simonson>out. Chief Warrant Officer Steve Serena has been breaking ice for seven years, part of it <v Mike Simonson>on board the Sundew. He says they got the call for assistance about five hours <v Mike Simonson>after the spear left the Duluth Superior Harbor. <v Steve Shoulders>Just before 9 we got a call from him saying that they were stuck out here about a mile

<v Steve Shoulders>from the from the water. <v Steve Shoulders>We're not exactly sure what happened. <v Steve Shoulders>Once we get out there, we'll be able to see a little bit better. <v Steve Shoulders>Why did they? They got out of the track. <v Steve Shoulders>It closed on him from the wind because we got a pretty strong northeast wind blowing <v Steve Shoulders>right now with this storm coming so. <v Steve Shoulders>Well, once we get out there, we'll see what happens. <v Mike Simonson>Their job now will be to cut ice for 17 miles to reach the spear. <v Mike Simonson>The ice is about two feet thick this day. <v Mike Simonson>Once they reach the ship, Serena says they'll cut a track around the starboard side of <v Mike Simonson>the spear. <v Steve Shoulders>We go through and break it up and chop it up, which was what we call turning the big <v Steve Shoulders>chunks in a little chunks. We kind of go through here, make a snow cone out of it, a <v Steve Shoulders>slushy, and softens it up and allows us to run through it without any problem. <v Steve Shoulders>That's why we're making good time. If we have to get out when we go to start going around <v Steve Shoulders>the sphere, we're going to have the back and RAM a few times. <v Mike Simonson>It's ironic that this ice can get tougher as warmer weather settles in, the warmer <v Mike Simonson>weather breaks up the ice. And then the worst fears, a strong northeast wind that <v Mike Simonson>can not only blow the ice in against the harbor entries, but it can pile at 10 to 15 <v Mike Simonson>feet high. Sundew officer Lieutenant Corey Reynolds says that's what's already happening

<v Mike Simonson>in parts of Lake Superior. <v Corey Reynolds>At this rate, if the weather keeps this up and ice starts driftin' and we kill a lot of <v Corey Reynolds>drfits like that, and the Sundew would have a heck of a time really maintaining <v Corey Reynolds>Lake Superior at the western end of Lake Superior. <v Mike Simonson>That's why ice can be a problem as late as June on heavy ice years for the Sundew. <v Mike Simonson>Now, just a few miles from the spear, the Sundew radios the vessel for status reports. <v Radio Operator>We are now there. <v Radio Operator>[?inaudible?] <v Mike Simonson>Reynolds says conditions on eastern Lake Superior are even worse, keeping the much larger <v Mike Simonson>cutter Mackinaw pretty busy. <v Corey Reynolds>Ice has kind of brought them to their knees. <v Corey Reynolds>It's about four foot or six foot ridges and two to four foot <v Corey Reynolds>lake ice and it's really slowin' him down.

<v Corey Reynolds>I guess they've had to back and ram several times. <v Mike Simonson>Less than a mile from the spear now and Sundew Commander John DeYoung orders his <v Mike Simonson>crew to stations. It's time to cut a relief path several yards from the spear <v Mike Simonson>and then lead the ship to open water. <v John DeYoung>Up alongside the spear we're going to be going out on the bridge wing. <v John DeYoung>I don't want a guy talking on the bridge so he can hear the [?inaudible?] officer. <v Mike Simonson>This day, it was like cutting through a frozen margarita, not too hard, but very chunky, <v Mike Simonson>says Officer Serena. Spears' next challenge will be in heavier ice near <v Mike Simonson>Whitefish Bay and the Soo Locks with a spear will need an escort from the Mackinaw. <v Speaker>This is why most of them go. You just come up alongside, get them a little relief and <v Speaker>they go. Now, we're lucky on this one that he- that this pier was able <v Speaker>to run on their own. They'll get out to the ice edge and just keep on going.

<v Mike Simonson>Ice is a way of life for Great Lakes navigators. <v Mike Simonson>This won't be the last thousand foot carrier the crew of the Sundew will be freeing from <v Mike Simonson>the ice. On Lake Superior nboard the Coast Guard cutter Sundew, Mike <v Mike Simonson>Simonson, Wisconsin Public Radio. <v Mike Simonson>It was a different time, a time of backyard bomb shelters, McCarthyism <v Mike Simonson>was still a recent memory. The Cold War was raging. <v Mike Simonson>It was during that time around 1960 that a secret grenade project by Honeywell <v Mike Simonson>in the Twin Cities was going on. <v Mike Simonson>As with most projects, some parts were rejects. <v Mike Simonson>So the Department of Defense ordered the Army Corps of Engineers to dump those rejects <v Mike Simonson>and cement filled drums under armed guard into Lake Superior. <v Mike Simonson>It was a different time environmentally, too, when out-of-sight was out of mind. <v Mike Simonson>Today, rumors of hazardous materials in those barrels make this a Superfund hotspot. <v Mike Simonson>So the Army Corps has hired the Navy to recover those same barrels. <v Mike Simonson>The Corps insists the barrels contain only cement and scrap metal.

<v Mike Simonson>But the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency isn't satisfied, and neither are <v Mike Simonson>environmentalists like Alden Lind of Save Lake Superior Association. <v Mike Simonson>Lind says this is a strange story. <v Alden Lind>It does seem to me that if these materials were as benign as they say they were, I can't <v Alden Lind>imagine why they would have needed all that care and their disposition <v Alden Lind>that makes you suspicious. I mean, somehow all this doesn't really add up. <v Alden Lind>And so you sit there, you ponder it and wonder about whether <v Alden Lind>this is sort of Pentagon foolishness or <v Alden Lind>whether there's something more to it than that. <v Speaker>Lind says the only way the general public will believe the scrap metal and cement story <v Speaker>is if the Corps recovers 15 percent of the barrels from each of the seven dump sites. <v Mike Simonson>Because I don't think there's any question but that the reports all <v Mike Simonson>indicate that there was a variety of materials tossed into those <v Mike Simonson>Merrills. Those are reports from from Honeywell employees. <v Mike Simonson>Lind would like to see about 200 barrels raised.

<v Mike Simonson>The Corps will be happy with recovering a dozen. <v Mike Simonson>That's where Navy Chief Ward Officer Greg Updegraff comes in. <v Mike Simonson>It's a sunny Friday morning when his crew heads out on the barge Marcus to try and <v Mike Simonson>recover their first barrel. <v Greg Updegraff>Our intent is not to get in the water until we have somethin' in sight. <v Greg Updegraff>And once we have it on on the camera on the ROV. <v Greg Updegraff>Set the camera right there. <v Greg Updegraff>Send a diver down. Flash up the barrels and <v Greg Updegraff>bring 'em on up. <v Mike Simonson>Updegraff says deeper dumpsites will be left to their remote sub that they call Fatman, <v Mike Simonson>the ROV is. <v Greg Updegraff>His design will go down. <v Greg Updegraff>We're located. They bring it back up and hook it up to this <v Greg Updegraff>car. It's a big barrel block. <v Greg Updegraff>It's 9:20 when the remote operated sub is pulled onboard <v Greg Updegraff>for the first time in the morning and for the first time in the morning, a setback with a <v Greg Updegraff>pressure seal that has cracked. <v Greg Updegraff>They're going to try to replace it now.

<v Greg Updegraff>Hopefully the second one will hold up. <v Speaker>I've never had that many sonar failures in one day in my life. <v Speaker>Just not a good day, and nobody can understand why. I can't understand why either. <v Mike Simonson>Forty five minutes later, equipped with a new sonar camera module, Fat <v Mike Simonson>Man is hoisted back into Lake Superior and with it the possibility of success <v Mike Simonson>or failure of any deep water recovery of barrels. <v Bob Dempsey>Right after mile here we've got a group of about six. <v Bob Dempsey>They're spaced at about thirty feet and they're sitting on the bottom pretty flat. <v Mike Simonson>That's Army Corps project director Bob Dempsey looking at Fat Man's camera focused on a <v Mike Simonson>set of barrels in one hundred fifty five feet of water. <v Mike Simonson>Now it's the divers turn. <v Mike Simonson>They dive in teams of two and keep in constant radio contact following Fat Man's tether <v Mike Simonson>to the barrels. <v Speaker>[Radio chatter] <v Mike Simonson>And then success.

<v Mike Simonson>As workers topside begin really in their first barrel, to the Corps, is Dempsey <v Mike Simonson>so far so good. <v Bob Dempsey>Nothin' on the Geiger counters, No, no interesting colored fluid running out of it, <v Bob Dempsey>anything. Just an old rusty barrel. <v Mike Simonson>The question now for environmentalist Alden Lind and for pollution control agencies' <v Mike Simonson>Bob Cross is does this answer the question of the other fourteen hundred plus <v Mike Simonson>barrels? <v Bob Cross>We had already checked it for- with <v Bob Cross>our meters, for volatiles and anything that would be coming <v Bob Cross>off in air from chemicals inside it. <v Bob Cross>We checked it for radiation. Uh, with one small hole in <v Bob Cross>it confirmed that it was already the, uh, more parts, <v Bob Cross>so we didn't feel it's a problem. <v Mike Simonson>Unlike three decades ago, Cross says it would be against the law for the government <v Mike Simonson>to order dumping in our Great Lakes. <v Bob Cross>Something that they did years ago, nobody thought anything of it. <v Bob Cross>Bad practice. But anyway, whether you dump it in lakes or dump it on the ground, it's <v Bob Cross>still just as much of a problem.

<v Mike Simonson>For Lind, those barrels or a lesson that we can learn from for the next generation's <v Mike Simonson>sake. <v Alden Lind>Talk about our national debt being left to our grandchildren. <v Alden Lind>Think about the the debt that was even left to this <v Alden Lind>generation in the Superfund sites. <v Alden Lind>I mean, that was a debt that was left to us. <v Mike Simonson>In Superior, Mike Simonson, Wisconsin Public Radio. <v Mike Simonson>Today's question is define and photograph the barge, not bay, an all too common <v Mike Simonson>casualty of fire in 1905 of Stockton Islands, Julian Bay. <v Mike Simonson>The days of fire boilers on wooden ships. <v Mike Simonson>John Jensen pilots the Boston Whaler, Orian, with its state historical <v Mike Simonson>society diving crew four. <v John Jensen>We're in 13 feet of water right now. <v Mike Simonson>This team's objective is to check for looting and damage by nature. <v Mike Simonson>Underwater <v Mike Simonson>archaeologist Dave Cooper leads this expedition in the Apostle Islands as he does much

<v Mike Simonson>of the summer in both of Wisconsin's Great Lakes. <v Dave Cooper>Robin Harrigan jumping in video and photography. <v Dave Cooper>Um, you guys just snorkel. <v Dave Cooper>You guys who were interested in doing is just seeing if there's any new sections that <v Dave Cooper>have scoured out, getting a kind of an overall sense of what's been in-filled <v Dave Cooper>with sand. Rob, if you can get that as much as possible with aerials. <v Mike Simonson>Cooper's goal is to monitor these wrecks and map out a course to preserve the evidence <v Mike Simonson>of a rougher day on Lake Superior. <v Dave Cooper>We're trying to document what may be progressive ice damage to the wheel. <v Dave Cooper>That was possibly anchor damage as well from sailboats. <v Dave Cooper>It's not certain. And any other evidence of anchor damage you might see in terms of fresh <v Dave Cooper>breaks and timbers and things being pulled up out of the bottom. <v Mike Simonson>There are a dozen major known sunken ships in the Apostle Islands and maybe <v Mike Simonson>a dozen more still to be found here. <v Mike Simonson>This crew's hope is to keep wrecks and artifacts like this around for generations to

<v Mike Simonson>come. <v Dave Cooper>The NACC Bay has actually remained pretty intact. <v Dave Cooper>A lot of the artifacts, most of the artifacts that were on it when it was found are still <v Dave Cooper>there. People have been real respectful of the site. <v Mike Simonson>And for those lacking respect, Cooper says a new Wisconsin law this year makes it <v Mike Simonson>possible for the DNR to crack down on shipwreck looters and allows more money to <v Mike Simonson>provide anchor buoys to protect wreck sites. <v Mike Simonson>The law is as tough as those in neighboring Illinois and Michigan to keep out-of-staters <v Mike Simonson>from targeting wrecks in Wisconsin. <v Dave Cooper>And people from southeastern Wisconsin coming up there and doing a fair amount of <v Dave Cooper>looting. We have a lot of wreck-hunting out of Chicago that goes up into <v Dave Cooper>the DA County area and really all the way down Sheboygan, uh, <v Dave Cooper>Milwaukee. And there's still seems to be a fair amount of looting activity <v Dave Cooper>that goes on down there. <v Mike Simonson>Cooper thinks the tide is turning with divers adopting wrecks to monitor and a mix of <v Mike Simonson>education as well as enforcement. <v Dave Cooper>We're hoping not to have to really use the iron fist with this uh <v Dave Cooper>with this tactic, but it's looking like if there's one here that's bound to happen, it's

<v Dave Cooper>going to be Lake Michigan because we have some serious attitude problems down here. <v Mike Simonson>New penalties to adjust these attitudes include a $5000 fine and confiscation <v Mike Simonson>of boats and equipment used in looting shipwrecks. <v Dave Cooper>Some of the people who were in this business are fairly wealthy people. <v Dave Cooper>These aren't, you know, sort of mom and pop operations. <v Dave Cooper>Some of these guys are wealthy hobbyists and are um <v Dave Cooper>used to having their own way in their own say. So they have some of the worst attitudes <v Dave Cooper>about public resources and abiding by the law. <v Dave Cooper>I'm talking some of the wreck hunters on Lake Michigan. <v Mike Simonson>State DNR director of law enforcement Ralph Christensen says the new law does <v Mike Simonson>give them more money for patrolling Lakes Michigan and Superior, but that's a lot of <v Mike Simonson>water to cover. And they're still responding to complaints more than actually catching <v Mike Simonson>looters red handed. Christensen says divers have to monitor themselves. <v Speaker>[?inaudible?]

<v Mike Simonson>So Rob Barrows takes a video camera as he rolls over the side of Orian. <v Speaker>[Splashing]. <v Mike Simonson>But not Bay was buried in shifting sands for decades before it was rediscovered <v Mike Simonson>in 1983, and diver John Jensen tells Cooper that the sand continues <v Mike Simonson>to be a problem. <v John Jensen>It almost buried it last year except for a little bit by the rudder whose, maybe, ye much <v John Jensen>of the back end of the rudder sticking out. <v Dave Cooper>Uh huh. <v Speaker>Last <v Speaker>year there was maybe this much exposed - 8, 10 inches on each side, <v Speaker>but scoured out... <v Mike Simonson>The idea isn't to keep these wrecks out of public view. <v Mike Simonson>And in fact, Cooper says some should have artifacts recovered if there is a danger of <v Mike Simonson>theft or of nature ruining them. <v Mike Simonson>And Cooper says they encourage divers to explore these wrecks. <v Mike Simonson>The Apostle Islands National Park Service offers waterproof divers' guides. <v Dave Cooper>History of the vessel and photograph, and that sort of thing. <v Dave Cooper>We're hoping to do that for all the other sites in this area.

<v Dave Cooper>As uh interpretive guides, visitors guides. <v Mike Simonson>Cooper says these wrecks are part of Wisconsin, part of state history that <v Mike Simonson>could never be replaced. <v Dave Cooper>These ships and these shipwrecks are a lot of who we are as a region, <v Dave Cooper>as communities, as individuals. And the Great Lakes is quite an interesting laboratory <v Dave Cooper>historically and ecologically, because we we have this very unique body <v Dave Cooper>of freshwater, unique blue water environment here <v Dave Cooper>in setting. <v Mike Simonson>Onboard the Orian and the Apostle Islands, Mike Simonson, Wisconsin <v Mike Simonson>Public Radio. <v Speaker>[Splashing] <v Mike Simonson>On November 10th, 1975, an icy storm slammed eastern Lake Superior <v Mike Simonson>ships with 25 foot waves and hurricane force winds.

<v Mike Simonson>It was a storm that didn't just pass through, but continued its fury for more than a day. <v Mike Simonson>The seven hundred twenty nine foot ore carrier Edmund Fitzgerald had been taking on water <v Mike Simonson>for several hours and had developed a list. <v Mike Simonson>A list its massive pumps couldn't correct. <v Mike Simonson>Captain Ernest McSorley radioed that he had topside damage, lost his radar, <v Mike Simonson>but was holding his own. It would be the last words heard from the Fitzgerald as it <v Mike Simonson>disappeared from radar going down with all 29 hands. <v Mike Simonson>For 19 years, the ship and its crew had been left alone, <v Mike Simonson>virtually undisturbed, but not forgotten. <v Mike Simonson>Remembered at Maritime Memorial Services. <v Announcer>Ernest McSorley. <v Announcer>Master, Toledo, Ohio. <v Announcer>John McCarthy, first mate, Bay Village, Ohio. <v Announcer>James Pratt, second mate, Lakewood, Ohio. <v Announcer>Michael Armacost, third mate, Iron River, Wisconsin. <v Janice Armagost>I started shaking... <v Announcer>George Hall... <v Janice Armagost>And I just knew. <v Janice Armagost>Mike had always said the water is so cold in Lake Superior in the fall

<v Janice Armagost>that if you ever fall overboard, you may as well forget it. <v Janice Armagost>And I just I knew it was all over at that minute. <v Mike Simonson>The sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald with all hands changed Janice Armagost's future <v Mike Simonson>from secure a wife and Mother to the uncertain future as a widow of the ship's <v Mike Simonson>third mate and mother of two small children. <v Mike Simonson>And it became an obsession for Fred Shannon of Mount Morris, Michigan, to solve a mystery <v Mike Simonson>of an apparently able ship that sank so fast that no distress call was ever made. <v Mike Simonson>Two people, two paths intersecting in 1994 from a <v Mike Simonson>tragedy that set them at odds with each other. <v Mike Simonson>Shannon has spent the last 19 years researching and lecturing about the Fitzgerald, a nd <v Mike Simonson>this past July led a submarine expedition to the twisted wreckage on the Canadian <v Mike Simonson>side of eastern Lake Superior. <v Diver>I'm starting to see bottom. Seeing bottom. <v Diver>Hang on, hang on. We're right over the wreck. We're right over there. <v Diver>Boy, oh, boy, oh, boy. Man. Hard

<v Diver>to believe. <v Mike Simonson>The cold, unpolluted water of Lake Superior makes for good visibility <v Mike Simonson>and little marine life and Delta Submarine pilot David Slater, a veteran of <v Mike Simonson>hundreds of ocean dives, says this freshwater dive is unique. <v David Slater>See the physics involved in something that large, that much steel, crashing <v David Slater>and twisting and turning. It's quite phenomenal. <v Mike Simonson>Slater dives includes the World War One era Lusitania and says the Fitz is <v Mike Simonson>the most modern day wreck his crew has explored. <v David Slater>Most of the wrecks we've been on are turn of the century or earlier. <v David Slater>This is the most modern wreck we've been on. <v David Slater>And that adds a little bit to it. As far as I don't know, the modernness <v David Slater>of the Fitzgerald makes you pause and consider <v David Slater>the tragedy and tragedy that was involved there until this year. <v Mike Simonson>None of the crew members remains had ever been found, and many consider the wreck a <v Mike Simonson>sacred gravesite for the 29 crew members. <v Mike Simonson>So the finding on the fourth dive the first day stunned the expedition.

<v Mike Simonson>Here's expedition leader, Fred Shannon. <v Fred Shannon>At approximately 6:18, <v Fred Shannon>we discovered a crew members body. <v Fred Shannon>The body was not in the wreckage, but in an area <v Fred Shannon>near the wreckage, near the mouth section. <v Mike Simonson>It was the first of the dead that Lake Superior would give up from this crew. <v Mike Simonson>And expedition videographer Rick Mixtor says it brought home the reality of what they <v Mike Simonson>were doing and what the stakes were. <v Rick Mixtor>When we all heard it, I mean, everything stopped. <v Rick Mixtor>Everything stopped. And I mean, there was just disbelief. <v Rick Mixtor>And I think that it's a very, very tender ground that any diver who dives <v Rick Mixtor>shipwrecks will run into. There are still several shipwrecks in the Great Lakes that have <v Rick Mixtor>bodies on 'em. Some people exploit it. <v Mike Simonson>Shannon notified the Canadian government of his find and declared the area off limits <v Mike Simonson>for the second and last day of the expedition. <v Mike Simonson>It was something Shannon knew he might find and was something the families of crew <v Mike Simonson>members of the Fitzgerald feared would someday happen.

<v Mike Simonson>In Superior, Mike Simonson, Wisconsin Public Radio. <v Mike Simonson>For 19 years, the Fitzgeralds sat quietly on Lake Superior's bottom with all 29 <v Mike Simonson>crew members that went down with her in the 1975 November gale, untouched <v Mike Simonson>until 1994. <v Mike Simonson>Janice Armagost dreaded this moment, dreaded hearing that an expedition exploring the <v Mike Simonson>Fitzgerald wreck site for the first time had found the remains of a crew member. <v Janice Armagost>What bothers me immensely is that that body is in view <v Janice Armagost>of any other person that will go down there in a submarine. <v Janice Armagost>It scares me to think that someday somebody might take a camera down there and <v Janice Armagost>that this will end up on the front page of The National Enquirer. <v Mike Simonson>Janice Armacost was 29 years old and a mother of two young children in Iron <v Mike Simonson>River, Wisconsin, when her husband, Michael, left Superior on what would be his <v Mike Simonson>final trip onboard the Edmund Fitzgerald. <v Mike Simonson>She never worried about Michael. After all, these huge ore carriers simply did not sink.

<v Mike Simonson>Now she counts herself and her now grown son and daughter as survivors of that shipwreck. <v Janice Armagost>And see, nobody realizes that that there are survivors. <v Janice Armagost>I mean, my kid's father is on that ship and my husband's <v Janice Armagost>on that ship. <v Janice Armagost>And people just think of it as a shipwreck that happened so long ago. <v Janice Armagost>And it's not. <v Mike Simonson>Expedition archaeologist Phil Wright worked for the Ontario government notifying <v Mike Simonson>families after shipwreck remains have been found at other sites. <v Mike Simonson>He says finding this body forces the question of ethics. <v Mike Simonson>Is it archeology or is it trespassing on sacred ground? <v Phil Wright>That brings more sorrow to them, as I would imagine. <v Phil Wright>It's very hard. Events like this bring it up again. <v Phil Wright>That healing process, I guess, never ends with the fact that finding human remains <v Phil Wright>is probably open. <v Mike Simonson>The expedition also found other things disturbing to families of the crew of the last

<v Mike Simonson>minutes of their lives. Shannon says his video shows clean breaks along the welded <v Mike Simonson>areas of the ship's hall, indicating structural failure, breaking the ship in pieces. <v Mike Simonson>And most disturbing is video of three open doors and the body found outside the <v Mike Simonson>ore carrier indicating the ship broke up on top of Lake Superior with the crew knowing <v Mike Simonson>its fate and trying to flee. <v Fred Shannon>I believe when she broke in two that, everybody knew they knew something was drastically <v Fred Shannon>wrong and it was every man for himself. <v Fred Shannon>I don't think there was any organized effort to to exit the vessel <v Fred Shannon>or to use lifesaving equipment. <v Fred Shannon>Fact that they found two lifeboats and two life inflatable <v Fred Shannon>life rafts lends credence to the fact that really nobody got out to <v Fred Shannon>where those items were located and attempted to launch them. <v Mike Simonson>That's expedition leader Fred Shannon. <v Mike Simonson>He knows his theory is hard on families, but thinks there is a measure of comfort in <v Mike Simonson>knowing what actually happened 19 years ago. <v Fred Shannon>They always knew that their husbands and brothers and sons were fighters and that if

<v Fred Shannon>there was any possible way to save their self or to <v Fred Shannon>save anybody else, that they would have done it. <v Fred Shannon>They feel some solace in the fact that there was an attempt by <v Fred Shannon>these brave men to do something, that they were not <v Fred Shannon>just trapped in their fate. <v Mike Simonson>But the truth is not easy for these Fitzgerald survivors. <v Mike Simonson>Janice Armogast says it's all very difficult. <v Janice Armagost>I was always able to stop myself from thinking up to a certain point, <v Janice Armagost>you know, when I think of Mike on the boat. <v Janice Armagost>As soon as I would reach a certain point like the last three, four or five <v Janice Armagost>minutes of his life, I was always able to just block that out of my <v Janice Armagost>mind and never really come to grips with it. <v Janice Armagost>But now this is making me deal with more things. <v Mike Simonson>And it's upsetting to think of her husband's last moments of life. <v Janice Armagost>And that, of course, makes you think what went on in somebody's mind the last five <v Janice Armagost>minutes, the last 10 minutes before they died.

<v Mike Simonson>Janice Armagost never remarried, raising her two children alone. <v Mike Simonson>Even after 19 years, she thinks of him often. <v Janice Armagost>You know, I look at my kids and I see Michael. <v Janice Armagost>So that's a reminder every day. <v Mike Simonson>Nineteen years ago, the unthinkable of modern shipping happens during the infamous <v Mike Simonson>gales of November on Lake Superior, and a wife becomes a widow <v Mike Simonson>with no chance to say goodbye. <v Janice Armagost>I would've told him I loved him and thank him for the years that we had together. <v Janice Armagost>And I would have tried to tell him that we would be <v Janice Armagost>OK. That his children would grow up to be <v Janice Armagost>fine young adults, which they are. <v Announcer>Oliver Shampole, third assistant engineer, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. <v Announcer>Frederick Beecher, porter, Superior, Wisconsin. <v Announcer>Thomas Benson, boiler, St. Joseph, Michigan. <v Announcer>Thomas Ferguson, Detroit.

<v Speaker>["Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" by Gordon Lightfoot plays]