Jim Kennard kept a secret under wraps for two years.

The fact that his big find was under water didn’t make it any easier.

“Sitting on something like this for two years is really hard,” the undersea explorer said about his latest discovery — a fully intact 150-year-old schooner sitting upright on the bottom of Lake Ontario, about 150 kilometres east of Toronto.

He and his underwater exploration team — Dan Scoville and Roland Stevens — were almost certain they had found the three-masted Queen of the Lakes two years ago.

The team has found about 12 wrecks in Lake Ontario using sonar- and remote-operated vehicles. Their first step is to research the boat they are looking for and the route it would likely have taken to transport goods such as salt and coal from New York to Canada.

“I don’t think people realize it, but they were the truckers of 100 to 150 years ago,” he said. “All of our goods didn’t come over roads. The big goods really came via our lakes.”

The Queen of the Lakes was built in 1853 and sank in November 1906 while transporting coal destined for Queen’s University in Kingston from Charlotte (the old port that is now Rochester.)

A huge storm shook the 53-year-old wooden boat and the weakened hull gave out. The bottom fell out of the boat and it began to fill with water. The captain and five crew members managed to escape in a yawl, Kennard said. They had to row 15 kilometres back to shore through three-metre high waves in the bitter cold.

“They were just darn lucky to not have died of exposure,” said Kennard.

A century ago there was no GPS, so pinpointing the location of a wreck is never easy.

The team works a grid of about 10 square kilometres towing a side scan sonar machine on a long cable behind the boat, said Kennard. The sonar takes pictures, much like an ultrasound, that are transmitted up to laptops on the boat.

“Think about staring at a laptop computer for 10 hours at a featureless bottom. That’s not very interesting and all of a sudden something like this shows up. It’s a celebration,” he said.

Sometimes the team dives down to the wreck, but it was too dangerous with the Queen of the Lakes, which was between 60 and 90 metres below the surface. They had to wait for a remote-operated vehicle to arrive from Texas, which took two years. During that time, Kennard, Stevens and Scoville kept quiet about their exciting discovery.

“It was very frustrating,” said Kennard.

Finally this week, they sent the vehicle down to take photos and video and were able to confirm their discovery — they’d found the wreck in Lake Ontario and it was intact. The expedition was funded by the Great Lakes Historical Society.

“This one is a real beauty, with the masts standing up like that, nothing is busted up,” said Kennard.

While he will never get to stand on the Queen of the Lakes’ deck, he said he feels like he’s climbed a mountain.

“We’re the first ones that are discovering these shipwrecks,” he said.

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Schooner was news at time of sinking

The sinking of the Queen of the Lakes made the news in 1906:

In Canada: “‘Schooner Queen of the Lakes Foundered. All the crew saved.’ A telegram with the above was received by James Richardson & Sons late Thursday afternoon. The schooner is owned by the Richardsons, and was on her way from Charlotte to Kingston with coal. It was learned that she foundered when about ten miles out of Sodus. The captain and members of the crew will arrive in the city via the Cape boat at noon to-day. The crew is composed of the following: Capt. Chauncey Darryaw, Frank Darryaw, son of the captain, R. Watts, Thomas Watson, Francis Truesdall, and Samuel Cannem, cook, all of Kingston.” — Kingston Daily Whig, Friday, Nov. 30, 1906.

In the States: “The crew of six men were unable to save her and when about opposite Sodus Point abandoned her and took to the small boat. The schooner went to the bottom soon afterwards. The men reached shore safely, but in an exhausted condition. The vessel was valued at $5,000 and her cargo at $1,700. The owners had no insurance.” — Buffalo Evening News, Nov. 30, 1906.

Wreck hunters

Hunting for shipwrecks in the Great Lakes is a just hobby for Jim Kennard, Roland Stevens and Dan Scoville but the amateur explorers have made some impressive discoveries. Among the nearly 200 shipwrecks Kennard has discovered in 35 years of hunting are:

HMS Ontario: In 2008 in Lake Ontario, Kennard’s team located the wreck of the HMS Ontario, the oldest shipwreck ever found in the Great Lakes. During the American Revolution in 1780, the 22-gun British warship was lost in a gale with barely a trace and as many as 130 people aboard.

Milan: The team found the 157-year-old schooner just west of Rochester, N.Y., in 2006. The Milan sprung a leak and sank in 1849 as it carried a cargo of salt from Oswego to Cleveland. The crew and its dog, which reportedly went under with the ship and almost drowned, were picked up by another vessel.

Orcadian: The team also discovered the schooner, which went down in 1858 after colliding with another ship. The Orcadian was carrying wheat from Bayfield, Ont., to Oswego, N.Y. Captain James Corrigal, his wife, their two children and the crew escaped by boat.

Etta Belle: The schooner sank suddenly during calm weather in 1873 as it sailed to Toronto loaded with coal. The crew made it to shore by boat.

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