PICTOU, N.S. — One of the first people to see a recently discovered sunken ship in Pictou Harbour, N.S., calls the wreck "amazing."
"Of its day, it was an ark," said diver Robert MacKay of Caribou, Pictou County.
"It was probably one of the nicest powered ships of that era. We were all in awe."
A team from the Canadian Hydrographic Service discovered the existence of the wreck last week when they scanned the bottom of the harbour with newer
technology than had been used before.
"It was sounded when charts were made for the harbour, and there was an abnormality there," said MacKay. "But nobody ever questioned that."
Hydrographers are mainly concerned that the wreck not pose a navigational hazard to mariners in the area.
MacKay is unaffiliated with the government, but as a local with a passion for archeological diving, he wanted to explore the ship itself.
"The beauty about it is that it's a virgin wreck. It's not been disturbed," he said.
MacKay assembled six other divers, mostly friends, as soon as he was able to get the co-ordinates of the wreck. They took MacKay's boat into Pictou
Harbour on Friday to make the dive.
"As a combined effort, we got a lot of information off the wreck," he said. "We had probably 85 years of wreck knowledge on my boat."
MacKay said he and his friends all agreed the sunken ship was at least 120 years old.
By his measurements, it's almost 60 metres long. The bow is under about 12 metres of water, while the stern is only about nine metres deep. It's still upright
on the harbour floor.
MacKay said the aspect of the wreck he was most excited about were the two propellers.
"You could not put one of those propellers in a dump truck. They're that big," he said.
Each one was about three metres high by MacKay's measurements, and made out of wood.
MacKay said that the wreck is wooden is especially amazing.
"You don't get wooden ships, 120 years old, sitting upright, with both anchors down, in a shallow harbour in Canada. You just don't get that," he said.
"All the old wooden schooners and wooden ships from the 1800s are virtually gone. And this one near is," MacKay added.
"It's getting there. It's very fragile."
MacKay said the large amount of fresh water present in Pictou Harbour may have contributed to the ship's preservation.
The wreck still hasn't been identified by name or even type of ship. But MacKay said he and his divers found signs of a fire on board.
"What happened was, it was at anchor, either waiting to leave or waiting to load, and it burned," MacKay hypothesized.
MacKay says he plans on exploring the as yet unidentified ship again on Monday.
