Research Updates
For those wishing to keep up with new information as it becomes available, I maintain a website at www.shipwreckwexford.ca. The site is updated periodically with additional research findings as they are confirmed.
“Wexford Found Off Grand Bend” by Tim Cumming
The Goderich Signal-Star, September 6, 2000
Two cellular phone calls were made to the Goderich Signal-Star newsroom on Friday afternoon and it was hard to understand the words through the poor reception. The excited voice breaking up over the lines belonged to Bob Carey. The usually reserved chair of the Goderich Marine Heritage Committee was speaking with the excitement of a child on Christmas morning.
The words on the voice-mail message might not have been clear but there was no question about the meaning. After 87 years hidden at the bottom of Lake Huron, the Wexford had been found. It was as if Elvis Presley himself had walked onto the Goderich Square.
What is the Wexford? It was one of only three lost ships left to be found from the Great Storm of November 1913. Until last week!
The ocean-going steamer had become a tomb for the 26-year-old1 captain and his fellow sailors who served on the vessel’s ill-fated journey, which started when the vessel left Fort William with a load of steel rails.2 Built in 1883, the roughly 260-foot steamer was the pride of the William Doxford & Sons Company of Sunderland, England. It was built in 1883. It was launched as the Wexford and the name was changed to Elise in 1890 before being renamed Wexford in 1894. That name Wexford will be new to some people, but not for long. The vessel may soon become a major draw to scuba diving and marine heritage enthusiasts.
“It will open up another page of Great Lakes history,” said Carey. “It’s opened up this whole Ontario west coast as a dive centre; it’s just unbelievable.”
Serendipity, the ability to make wonderful discoveries by accident, was the word applied by Brent Bamford, acting president of the Goderich chapter of Save Ontario Shipwrecks (SOS). “It sort of makes you believe there’s a destiny or a fate,” he said. Long before Hollywood would popularize the concept of a “perfect storm,” the Great Storm of 1913 was the storm of unrivaled proportions.
The storm around November 7-12 has been referred to as the White Hurricane and the Big Blow. The Wexford went down after the cruel twist of fate, which left Lake Huron resembling a boiling cauldron.
There were a couple of odd twists of fate last week when the Wexford was discovered. The ship, which had remained hidden for 87 years, picked a strange time to reappear. Her discovery was almost to the day that Great Lakes searcher David Trotter arrived in Goderich with advanced side-scan sonar, ready to map out the bottom of the lake in a search for shipwrecks.
Trotter is the owner of Undersea Research Associates. He is the equivalent of a marine detective, having found more than 60 Great Lakes shipwrecks.3 He spent about ten years tracking down the Minnedosa, which he says is the biggest schooner ever built in Canada. Trotter, who is beginning his fourth decade of searching for shipwrecks, came to Goderich from his home in the Detroit suburb of Canton, Michigan. He brought advanced, commercial-grade side-scan sonar equipment to track down the Wexford.
It was a humble fisherman with an inexpensive fish finder who made the big catch, however. Donald Chalmers, who is staying at Green Haven Trailer Park in Grand Bend, wasn’t specifically looking for the Wexford. The London resident and avid fisherman was actually out downrigging for salmon but he knew by looking at his fish finder that he had caught something bigger than a salmon.
Dave Trotter and the side-scan crew on the Danel Mac in August 2000. From left to right: Dave Trotter, Brent Bamford, Jay Poulter, and Bob Carey. Effective sidescanning requires a great commitment and long hours of repetitive but systematic survey work.
Photo by the author.
“Part of fishing is looking for structures down on the bottom,” he said. “You watch for anomalies on the bottom … when this showed up (I realized) this was not natural.” He was northwest of Grand Bend about eight miles when the fish finder indicated there was something there. The ordinary fish finder gave enough detail to see the contour of the hull.
It was another interesting twist to the Wexford saga that the man who found the steamer just happened to be a close acquaintance and former co-worker of Carey. “Look at the number of fishermen who go out here every day … of all the people who could have been there to snag that, it was someone who knew Bob,” marvelled Bamford. “What are the chances of the two of them knowing each other?”
“The wreck wanted to be found,” said Carey.
The ship’s discoverer, Chalmers, also has other links to the Wexford story. His father-in-law, 93-year-old John Manore, was a commercial fisherman for many years. John’s father was Christopher Columbus “Cub” Manore. The great storms of 1913 ripped Cub Manore’s fish shanties right off the shore.
“John remembers his father telling him stories about the damage from the storm,” said Chalmers. The soft-spoken Carey has an everpresent smile and a polite, quiet manner. When it comes to the Wexford, however, there is no reserve in him. His wife, Barb, says he even has Wexford parties in the wintertime. He has a map there marked with the final destination of lost Lake Huron ships and coordinates for the prospective location of the Wexford.
“Every waking minute, when you’re not working, you’re after it,” he said of his near obsession. It came as no surprise then, that the normally low-key Carey was the most excited of anyone when news of the Wexford’s discovery came his way. He spoke Friday sporting a sunburned face and a smile from ear-to-ear, having recently dived on the ship he is convinced is the Wexford.
Carey and his fellow divers were ecstatic to find the well-preserved relic sitting upright on the bottom of the lake, as if it had been gently placed there by an unseen hand.
“This one’s just perfect,” said Chalmers. “It’s like it was just set there on a pedestal.”
Carey agrees with the assessment. “It’s one of the best ships that I’ve ever seen,” he said after his dive. Carey’s hair may be greying but his boyish enthusiasm shone through last week after swimming through a boat he has sought for almost a decade. He dove on the ship with Chalmers and Bamford. “We were the first ones on that ship since 1913,” Carey said.
Trotter wasn’t part of the original discovery but his presence in Goderich during the momentous event provided the opportunity to take some sonar pictures of the vessel and the surrounding topography.
“It was like a dream for all this to come together,” said Carey. “We’ve been looking for this for years.” There have been reports of the Wexford’s discovery in the past but they either weren’t substantiated or proved false. There is the chance this wreck could prove to be a ship other than the Wexford but the men who have dived on it are adamant that this is the real McCoy.
“There’s no question what it is, absolutely none,” said Chalmers.
The bed of the lake is provincial Crown land, so the vessel is the property of the province. The marine heritage committee had a licence4 to search for the ship, but they will now have to obtain a licence through the Ministry of Recreation and Culture to do an official survey and to document the artifacts inside.
“Divers won’t be able to touch the artifacts while the vessel is being surveyed,” said Carey. “We’ve really