Three million wrecks
The disdain for our planet’s waters exceeds only slightly our disdain for its land
The Five Finger Bay Fish Tug wreck, off Isle Royale, Lake Superior, USA.
Kent Peterson is a Superior fellow. That is to say, he lives in a town named Superior, which is located on the shores of the lake of that name. It’s a faux translation of the original name—le Lac supérieur—with which it was baptised by French colonialists exploring upstream from its neighbour back before there was even one United State. Supérieur was intended to refer to its approximately 25 metres of higher elevation than that of Lake Huron, whereas the translation is a reference to its greater surface area. If Kent’s reading this, it derives in no way from the purported character of its citizens, however true he may wish to assert that as being.
Recently, Kent has been talking about the weather, in and around Superior and in terms of the influences of the nearby body of water. His article is entitled cooler by the lake, and whether that’s an observation about relative temperatures between town and waterside or a reference to the kind of accessory he likes to have with him when in that locus, I don’t know. Both, maybe.
One of his correspondents was kind enough to comment with the hyperlink to a web page that goes into some detail about the features and characteristics of Lake Superior. A number of these features took me aback. Such as its sheer size. It is less a lake and more a sea. In Scotland a lake is a loch, but a loch can be both landlocked and have direct access to the sea, and that makes it a versatile word, not bound by specialist definitions. In fairness, the Sea of Azov, the Dead Sea and the Caspian Sea are likewise more in the line of what we think of when we imagine a lake.
In the language of the Ojibway, a First Nation tribe of which I am an honorary member, its name is Gitchi-Gami, which translates as the great sea and is cited by Longfellow in a poem of his about Hiawatha. It is a maxim of the Ojibway to take from the land what you need, and no more; and to return to the land what you can, and no less. It’s a maxim grounded in fair distribution, in respect, both for nature and one’s fellow man, and in conservation of the land for future generations. Modern Americans would do well to heed their First Nation predecessors. But, as it transpires, modern man returns to Lake Superior items that really ought to be removed again, no more and no less.
On a body of water that size, it may not surprise you to learn that ships get wrecked at intervals. Waves in stormy weather on Lake Superior reach 20 to 30 feet. Ships, even quite sizeable ships, have got into difficulty, succumbed to the elements and lie now, at rest, on the floor of the lake.
One particularly propitious place to visit such wrecks is Isle Royale, which is located in the northern part of the lake, close to the border with Canada. Dotted around the perilous coastline of Isle Royale, which itself has lakes on it, almost Russian doll-style, are the wrecks of quite a few vessels that, over the centuries have come to grief. The Preserve Our Wrecks organisation, of Kingston, Canada, has issued pleas to the general public, to not pilfer souvenirs and artefacts from sunken shipping. As their name implies, they, along with national and provincial authorities, are keen that vessels that have gone to the freshwater deep should remain intact and in the location that fate has decreed should be their final one. And that is interesting.
The prime interest in recovering the fuselage or other parts of an airliner that ditches (into water is superfluous: ditching means into water) is not re-use or even artefact value, but the very serious business of investigating what made it ditch in the first place. The investigation into Air France flight 447, which ditched in the Atlantic Ocean in 2009, covered 17,000 square kilometres of the ocean floor at depths of up to 4,000 metres. Air incident investigations are that thorough because their cause is often unknown. And, even if it is known, they check. An air accident final report always makes recommendations. But the recommendations are not always followed. So, although accident investigations take place, their utility is not always to improve safety. It could be allied to a desire to ensure people don’t stop flying, perhaps. Because the assiduousness with which sunken shipping is investigated is far off that standard.
It is occasionally heard of for stricken vessels to be salvaged, usually off a bar, bank or rocks (all things that poke above, or are only slightly under, sea level), usually in consideration of the cargo they are carrying: whether dangerous (like oil) or valuable (… like oil). A lot of dangerous cargo gets transported across the world’s seas and oceans pretty much the same way as pornography used to be: under plain wrappers. But ships that founder without any hope of rescuing the freight are simply consigned to the watery deep, whereupon all and sundry are prohibited from making any further investigation.
There are obvious difficulties to towing sunken ships. But these difficulties come allied to the fact that few, if any, will subsequently pose a danger to passing members of the public; not, at least, in terms of their decrepit state. But, in terms of the poisons and pollution they leech into the waters of our world, the contrast with how auto wrecks are dealt with is striking. True, on perilous stretches of mountain roads, from Bolivia to Crete, the greatest admonition to drive carefully is probably the sight of many a vehicle whose driver didn’t. But the easily accessible get carted off to the scrap merchant. We don’t just leave them by the side of the road.
It could be that the prohibition against treasure hunting from old shipwrecks is based on preserving the safety of divers (as opposed to drivers). But at least those who venture into the watery deep to collect that which is still valuable or of interest do the world a service by picking up shipping’s litter. If shipping lines place such value on their wrecks themselves, then they should be raising the garbage themselves, and taking it to wherever wrecked ships go for valorisation. But they should not leave their stuff lying around on seabeds to contribute to the garbage that enters our food chain and then tell everybody that they should keep well clear.
It’s as if they claim to have acquired property in that bit of seabed that their hapless ship has come to land on—if that’s not an oxymoron. Shipping already places serious burdens on our ecology. If they can build oil wells on the open seas, they can get out there to pick up their trash. There’s plenty of it: about three million shipwrecks worldwide, waiting to be left alone.
The MV Sewol Incheon to Jeju ferry is carried by pontoon into Mokpo, South Korea, having been raised from its resting place in the Yellow Sea. It sank mid-journey on 1 April 2014 with the loss of 304 souls. It was raised by Shanghai Salvage Company and, including silt, the salvage weight of 17,000 tons holds the world record.