A Diver’s Field Guide To Visiting Lake Superior Ship Wrecks

Lake Superior is not just cold, it’s demanding. The weather can turn fast, the waves hit differently than the ocean, and a shipwreck that felt “familiar” a decade ago may have collapsed into something sharp, dark, and dangerous today. We sit down with Stephen B. Daniel, an accomplished diver, author, illustrator, photographer, and maritime expert who has logged 530+ dives and brought countless wrecks to the surface through detailed underwater sketches and diver-friendly maps. 

We get practical about Lake Superior scuba diving safety: how Stephen plans a wreck dive, why dry suit layering matters, what good buoyancy control protects, and how depth changes everything from bottom time to decompression risk. He shares stories from standout dives like the SS America and describes what makes a wreck beautiful and what makes it a trap when storms shift structure and visibility drops. 

Then we zoom out to shipwreck preservation and Great Lakes maritime history. Stephen explains the difference between documented and undocumented wrecks, why laws like the Abandoned Shipwreck Act exist, and why “take pictures, leave bubbles” is more than a slogan. We also explore underwater photogrammetry and 3D shipwreck models that let non-divers experience these sites, track how wrecks change over time, and protect the past without removing it from the lake. 

If you care about shipwreck diving, boating safety, or the hidden history off Lake Superior’s North Shore, this conversation will stick with you. Subscribe, share the episode with a friend who loves the Great Lakes, and leave a review, then tell us: should shipwrecks be treated as underwater museums?

Transcript

Joe Boyle, Host 0:05

Welcome to Stories in Life. You're on the radio with Mark and Joe. We share stories that affirm your belief in the goodwill, courage, determination, commitment, and vision of everyday people.

Meet A Diver Who Draws Wrecks

Mark Wolak. Host 0:20

Our goal is that through another person's story, you may find connection, no matter your place in life. The stories we select will be inspiring and maybe help you laugh, cry, think, or change your mind about something important in your life. Join us for this episode of Stories in Life. Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but bubbles, disturb nothing but time. Today we welcome Stephen B. Daniel, an accomplished diver, author, artist, photographer, and maritime expert. He has taken more than five hundred and thirty dives to draw ships and bring those sketches to the surface so that other divers can learn about how to make the best and safe dives to that shipwreck. He began diving on the SS America, a very popular ship of the early 1900s, that now is a shipwreck located at North Gap Passage on Isle Royal. He has authored several books about shipwrecks and about diving to those shipwrecks. We are excited to have Stephen Daniel join us today and share his story about what he's learned about diving and in particular diving shipwrecks in Lake Superior. And I have a introduction of him by Tom Holden, the director of Lake Superior Maritime Visitor Center. He said, Daniel combines his talents as a diver, historian, writer, illustrator, and photographer to reveal the submerged remains of Minnesota North Shore history. And I thought that was a wonderful description of you as our guest today. And we're very excited to have you on. So thank you for saying yes. So first of all, um just give us a little description of the work you've been doing over the last few decades in terms of diving. We know, for example, that you've done over 230 dives. Is that correct?

Steven B. Daniel 3:18

I've actually done over uh 530. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. I I have like three dive books, so um actually four. So I I tend to uh record what I do, where I'm at, and what the conditions are and what I'm seeing. And I do little drawings and sketches in there, and that really is what prompted um uh one of the projects when I was involved with the I'm still involved with the Great Lakes Shipwreck Preservation Society. And um they um we were measuring different parts of the uh SS America up on Isle Royal near Thompson Island. Ken Merriman, who was um one of the uh founding fathers, had asked me to hold the end of the tape, the dumb end of the tape, so he could measure and we'd write things down. And I was kind of bored doing that, so I started sketching stuff underwater, and then I'd come up and sketch up my dive book and that, and uh then he said, uh, you know, I think you should just go down there and draw underwater and let somebody else hold the dumb end of the tape. So uh that was the beginning, and it led to a book uh called The SS America, a Diver's Vision of the Past. And I can I can show you a copy since you gentlemen can see, but it was an illustration and it had a number of uh um my drawings inside the book that uh depict for divers where things are and what they can see on the uh shipwreck. And then there was some history, and I actually asked Tom Holden to write the history. I thought he had done such a good job for the uh Nor'easter uh publication, and uh I thought, well, why don't we just uh script that with him as a co-author and I'll cover the rest and I can supplement it with other information that we discovered there in the uh in the process. So um I did that and we and it resulted in a book that the we used as a fundraiser for the Great Lake Shipwreck Preservation Society. And from that, um I went on to uh documenting other shipwrecks, and uh that led to the book Um Shipwrecks Along Lake Superior's North Shore, which you uh gentlemen probably have seen, may have a copy. Uh that turned out to be a diver's guide, but it's also a good coffee table book. And um I've done talks at different shipwreck shows and for different historical societies to share the information because there's a lot of interesting maritime history underwater along the North Shore from uh Oliver, Wisconsin all the way up to uh Victoria Island in Canada. And you can go on further, but then it would become a Canadian uh northern uh side of uh northern shores of Lake Superior. So um I've enjoyed doing that. It was fun doing a lot of the dives, and uh Ken Merriman and others helped me find a lot of the information or a lot of the shipwrecks that we documented. And Elmer Engman was another one, and he's a local diver in the Duluth area, uh, very well known. And uh we have um and I dive with Elmer actually going down to the Caribbean uh almost every year to um to uh different sites down there. But um sharing the information was good. It uh was necessary because a lot of times uh before that book existed, uh there were little pamphlets or people would tell you, oh, there's something over here, something over there, and you'd waste a lot of air on your dive tank trying to find something. And uh so what I wanted to do is pinpoint where the shipwrecks were with uh coordinates and uh draw maps of how to get there uh from the shore or from a boat or whatever, and uh pretty much document what is underwater. So I did drawings and I worked with the Minnesota uh Historic Uh Society to um in the ship office, state historic preservation office to borrow some of the drawings that they had hired people to do over the years, and uh for mostly uh putting ships on the National Register of Historic Places that is included in the book, and then I supplemented with my own drawings. And my at the time I did that because I didn't have an underwater camera, so all I could do was draw, and I thought, well, that was good. You know, I have an art background. The wreck of the Ely over in two harbors is a particularly nice one, and it took me about five tries, uh, five different drawings to make it bright. And uh I worked with Dave Cooper, who uh is with the National Park Service, and he too is an archaeologist, underwater archaeologist, and he helped help me refine the drawing with suggestions of uh what to represent and then explain some of the parts that I was showing. And so that is in the book and uh shows where a lot of the things are that you can see. And I think the documentation has been really valuable for a lot of people. Um on that blue book of the SS America, I received a um a disc and a um uh nice letter of uh thanking me for writing the book because a doctor and his son went and dove the wreck on one of the charter boats, off one of the charter boats on Isle Royal. And he said uh he read the book first, and it was available at one of the Isle Royal offices at um, I think the Windigo uh Ranger Station, uh the little store they have up there. But um he said what they found was by reading the book first, they could plan their dives and they could see all that stuff in person when they were on the wreck. And uh he really appreciated that because it made it just a phenomenal dive for his son and himself. So I really enjoy hearing that. Uh, a lot of people have told me how they really like uh my North Shore shipwrecks book and uh have really enjoyed it. And then one of the things that just happened recently that I think I mentioned to Mark was um I was asked to do a class, teach a class on shipwrecks uh at the University of Minnesota Duluth for the University for Seniors program. And I did that in January over four weeks, and I had 30 students in the class, only two were divers. And I got a nice letter at the end of the class that one of the gentlemen uh who happened to be on the curriculum committee said he really appreciated how I conducted the class and the information I shared. And apparently he lives on the North Shore, and he really uh didn't understand that there was a lot of neat stuff right off the shore, right in front of where he lived. And my class brought that to life. So I think he'll take a different perspective. I don't think you'll be able to see it if you're kayaking out there, but you know, if you are a diver, you can go a little lower.

What Lake Superior Diving Feels Like

Mark Wolak. Host 10:05

The one thing uh our listeners love Lake Superior stories, and so we have listeners all over the world, but in particular, Canadian and Netherlands and US listeners, many of them who live near water. And I think that some of that uh folklore of Lake Sip Lake Superior is really interesting for people, you know, and the maritime stories that you had to explore in order to find these wrecks. Um we haven't probably the time to go into all the the depth of stories like with the the wreck of the America at Isle Royal, but that's a fascinating story of that ship's history on Lake Superior. So for our listeners, um, what is it like to dive in Lake Superior? We know it's really a cold lake, it's deep, it's stormy at times. Uh what is that like? I mean, if you as a as a skilled uh diving uh professional, let's say, what what's your what would you tell people about that experience?

Steven B. Daniel 11:11

I have a healthy respect for Lake Superior. Actually, all the Great Lakes. I've I've been diving in all the Great Lakes except for Lake Ontario. I haven't had a chance to do that. But um the weather can change and can change suddenly, and also the pattern of the waves is different than it is on the ocean. So they can be sharper and uh cause a lot of interesting things to happen. Of course, if we're in a small boat, it doesn't really matter, it's gonna bob out there. And um, I have a 24-foot uh crestliner that I use, and uh we dive off the back of that, or I'm on a 33-foot uh Owen cruiser with Ken Merriman or on the dive boat for the shipwreck group, and that's about a 30-foot steel boat and screws. But um whatever we're doing, we always check the weather reports before going out because you don't want to put yourself in a bad situation and uh you don't want to become a shipwreck, and you certainly don't want anybody getting hurt. After you check the weather, um, you know, and you decide where you want to go, you plan your dive. You've already checked the book uh and uh maybe the um plan for the uh written your plan for the um dive site that you're going to do and see what there is to see and how far apart is it. And then you can some of the racks have mooring buoys like the Ely in two harbors and the Madeira over by Gold Rock Point, and you can tie up to those, and uh that works really good. So um once you get in the water, you're going to wear protective equipment such as a dry suit. And it's kind of like going outside here in the winter, it's cold out, but if you put a nice winter coat on, or you have another sweater or a sweatshirt or something underneath, you can layer up. Well, you do the same thing with diving. You can put an undergarment on, you can put a, you know, I wear long long johns underneath the undergarment, and I wear a couple pairs of wool socks uh inside my uh footies on the suit that go inside um boots, and um that keeps me fairly comfortable. And I wear gloves that are rubber with uh fleece lining inside, so that helps protect my hands. You know, if you've ever taken a pail of cold water and stuck your bare hand in it, it gets pretty cold pretty fast. But if you put a rubber glove on it and put it in that water, it feels much different. Now, if you put a um say a wool glove or something on and then you put the rubber glove on, maybe a little larger size so it's not real tight, and you dip it in the in the water, you you almost don't notice it. And then we're totally covered, you know. The suit covers the entire body. Um, you you cover yourself up with a dry suit, and uh you have the undergarments on, and you have a hood on and uh gloves, and everything is sealed. We have uh uh latex seals around the hood and the wrists, and then uh my gloves kind of clamp on to a plastic uh fitting with o-rings. So uh there's no water that's gonna go into the suit from that way. And we also have a valve that we can press and allow air inside the suit, mostly for equalization, but also to keep you more comfortable at depth. Uh, you know, a little air air is an insulator. That's how insulation works. It's uh you know, air bubbles in foam or you know, uh fiberglass insulation has a lot of looseness to it and it's trapping air, and that's what does the insulating. So uh we do that, and then even on my regulator, I have a mouthpiece, a little rubber guard that goes around like a little flange. And it's unbelievable how that can help protect your lips from getting cold underwater. There's any current or as you're moving yourself through the water with your fins, and uh then of course you have the goggles that cover your eyes and your nose. So when you get done, there isn't a whole lot of skin exposed. You know, there there shouldn't be much at all, probably just a little bit on the face, and that's about it. But um, you go down and and you have good equipment. I always I just have dropped mine off at a dive shop to get it service for the annual service. And I want to protect against uh any kind of uh free flow underwater at depth. But um when you're down there, you're you're breathing air and having a good time and you're focused on what you want to see. And if you've uh kind of looked over the um map of the site before you started, I think that really helps. And um, even uh just as an example, when uh people dive up by Gold Rock Point on the Madeira, there is a sign. Actually, it's the same drawing that's in my book. I gave permission to the DNR to use it on their sign, but people can walk down from the parking lot and stop on a platform before they walk the steps down to the beach and look at that layout of how the wreck is positioned down there and the pieces and where they are and uh pretty much gauge what they want to do. And a lot of times the depths are indicated too. And uh other people can go out to the mooring buoy and they'll go right off boat. And if you looked at the book first, you know which part of the wreck the buoys on. And there's two buoys sometimes out there, one on the bow and one on the stern section. Uh, it's a lot easier to dive off a boat because you're right over the wreck and you can spend your time swimming and using your air up on the rack rather than trying to get to it.

Mark Wolak. Host 16:35

How long do you usually how long is a dive if you're in Lake Superior? Is it uh 20 minutes, 40 minutes? What's a what's the length of one of your dives?

Steven B. Daniel 16:45

It depends on your depth, you know, and you have to use the navy dive tables to help serve as a guide to how long you can stay down at a certain depth. But typically, you know, you can do uh 40, 45 minutes and a lot of these wrecks that are probably um, I think uh the maximum time, say for 100 feet, might be 20 minutes. And um, you also got to plan that that's going down and coming back. And if you go deeper than that, the time gets shorter, or you go into decompression diving, and then that involves uh longer time in the water, and you have to come up with safety stops every 10 feet to uh make it back to the surface without having any residual nitrogen staying in your body. So um shallow wrecks 30, 30 feet deep, you know, kind of like the Ely over in two harbors. That's the depth there, you could spend a longer time. You could, if you're conservative on your air, you have a good usage of your air, you're relaxed, you're in good physical condition, then uh you're going to be breathing very comfortably. You get your buoyancy set, you know, you have a buoyancy compensator, which is like a bladder and a vest that you're wearing and it holds a tank. And you set that so that you don't want to touch the wreck as you go by because you'd be knocking little pieces of wood loose or rust or something, and not good for the wreck, and it's not good for the guy following you because it's going to change their visibility. And in a shipwreck, in uh a confined area, that could be very dangerous if there's a lot of silt on the bottom and somebody's a real sloppy diver, they they could be very dangerous. And I I don't want to dive with anybody like that. And uh, that's good for cave diving too. You have to learn how to have good buoyancy control. So, so you know, down there you can do an hour, you know, if you had enough air, you know. And uh, I dive with a 90 cubic foot uh steel tank. Other people might use an 80 cubic foot aluminum tank, and that's charged up to 3,000 uh psi, and the other one um would be up to 2400 cubic feet. And uh, I think it's 3,000 um is uh is the aluminum tank. But you know what it turns out to be is uh the bigger the tank or the more air that you can get in it, the longer you can stay down. And remember it's compressed air, so it's gonna ease itself out, and it takes a while to use it. And um, you have to have the training so that you don't hurt yourself. You know, when you breathe compressed air at depth, and then you have to go up, you have to go up slowly or you can hurt yourself. And uh so that's part of the diver training. And I've always found that the additional training that you take, you learn more about the medical aspects, and that's very important.

Favorite Wrecks And Deep Limits

Mark Wolak. Host 19:33

Of all the dives on Lake Superior, what what what was your most interesting dive?

Steven B. Daniel 19:41

I think I always enjoyed the America when it was in 3D up on Isle Royal, and I would get pictures from people that had dove it 20 years before me, and there was even more structure there. But as time went on, the waves and uh things, um, the weather would cause damage to the wreck, and pieces came up a part that would lift the the decks right off the side of the ship and send them over. So now it and it's now collapsed the uh rear part of the ship, which is a little lower. It goes from six feet under the circus down to 85 feet at the stern. And uh it used to be really, really interesting to go back into the salon and uh see all the stuff that was in there. You know, they had tables and everything else, and uh that's all depicted in my book, but you can't see that now. That thing kind of collapsed like a diamond, you know, instead of being a square, it just kind of went to a diamond over to one side, and it's very dangerous. Uh, you know, you could something could come loose and fall on you, you don't know. You know, it could have been the last storm and loosened more stuff up, so you have to be very careful. And that also uh was had a very really neat engine. You could go down in the engine room and you could see the American flag painted on one side of it, and that was really cool to see. So I think that was one of my outstanding adventures underwater diving that wreck.

Mark Wolak. Host 21:10

How about um in terms of the deepest dive on Lake Superior? Because we know that it has these extraordinary depths. Um, what's the deepest dive that you've taken on Lake Superior or any other of the Great Lakes?

Speaker 3 21:26

Well, the deepest dive I've done, I believe, was over by the Apostle Islands, and that was on the Marquette. And uh, I think we're down about 205 feet, and we were documenting it for uh nomining it to the National Register of Historic Places because it had just been found, and there were artifacts on board, including the bell, that they wanted to have us stay on board. Um, and it's very dark and cold down there, and you have a whole different type of gear that you're wearing. I was wearing double steel tanks and everything else. So that was totally a different dive. And it was good. I did it once and I was done. That's fine.

Joe Boyle, Host 22:05

What's the water clarity like down that deep?

Steven B. Daniel 22:09

Um, well, it probably depends on how strong a flashlight you have, or torch they call them sometimes. Um, you know, you um you can get, I don't know, I think I I've got a thousand lumens on the one I've got now, but uh, I want to go to like 12,000 or 18,000 because it doesn't go as far. You can't light as much up, but uh they have bigger batteries on some of the lights uh that they uh have strapped on their uh their VC and uh so on. But um the visibility normally in Lake Superior is about 30 feet, and uh that uh it's if the water has been calm and there's not been any rain near the area, if it's not near a river mouth, then um you know you can see pretty good. I think one year we had uh a dry season, and Ken Merriman was able to dive on one of the wrecks off the Leicester River called the Mayflower, and he got some beautiful video. And I had some other commitment. He asked me if I wanted to go, and I just kicked myself because I couldn't, you know, but that was absolutely the best time to see it, and he might have had clarity of 70 to 100 feet on that time. That was very unusual. And remember, it's off the Leicester River, so you got all that brown stuff coming out all the time. And you can see, you know, from shore, you can see how the St. Louis River empties out through the ship canal, and uh that'll brown out that whole area. So the Wilson is about a mile off, the Vista cruiser goes over the top of it, and um, that visibility can be down to five feet or less at times if it's really bad. So after a rain is not a good time to dive some of those wrecks. So you plan them out accordingly.

Joe Boyle, Host 23:55

Another question. This morning I was looking at a shipwrecks map of the north shore of Lake Superior, and some were labeled documented, others were labeled undocumented. Can you explain the difference between that?

Art From The Heart Diver’s Prayer

Steven B. Daniel 24:12

Those it may be possible that um the documented ones were the ones that have been nominated to the National Register of Historic Places, and uh the state of Minnesota did that um before I moved here. They were doing a lot of them, and uh that was to protect them and to make sure people didn't take things off them, and also to record what was there and uh make it known to people. And the Great Lake Shipwork Preservation Society has also been doing that. They have found a lot of the frecks and they um they document them. We hire an architect arch archaeologist, underwater archaeologist, to go through the formal procedures of doing that, and then they need somebody that's got some artistic skills to go down there and draw the thing. So I did some of that. There's so other people that have done it too. A lot of times, um the Wisconsin Historical Society has uh Tamara Thompson and Keith Memberden that uh were doing excellent uh scale drawings of a lot of the wrecks that they would dive on. And those were all, I'm sure they nominated a lot of them to the National Register of Historic Places just to get them recorded for history's sake, but also to protect them if there were uh any artifacts of note on board. And uh the Abandoned Shipwreck Act of 1987 uh pretty much laid out that uh it was illegal to take things off of shipwrecks because people do that. I think um out east uh is it's very popular. And the and the attitude is um, well, it's saltwater, they're gonna corrode and whatever, or they're gonna disappear, the storms are gonna break them or rip them up. Really, what they're saying is somebody else is gonna get there first. Yeah.

Joe Boyle, Host 25:58

So and now it's time for stories in life, art from the heart, deep thoughts from the shallow end. Each episode we bring you a poem, a song, or a reading just for you. A diver's prayer. O keeper of the depths, who knows the silence beneath the waves and the weight of the water above, watch over those who descend into the deep, where light fades and time stands still. Grant them steady breath and calm spirit, clarity in the dark, and respect for what lies below. And for those who did not return, who rest now in the cold and quiet places, hold them in your boundless ocean, where no storm can reach them. May we remember not only how they were lost, but how they lived, and how they are forever part of the deep.

3D Photogrammetry And Public Access

Mark Wolak. Host 27:22

This poem was written specifically for this episode of Stories in Life on the Radio with Mark and Joe. So you mentioned uh Shipwreck Preservation Society. Now that is headquartered in Minnesota, and there is uh website that people can go to, and there's a video of um of some wrecks that you have put together on that site. Is that that's correct, right?

When ROVs Replace Human Divers

Steven B. Daniel 27:49

Yes, uh, I'm not the one doing the website. Um, that would be uh um Phil Kerber and um Andrew uh Goodman are are monitoring it now as web managers. Ken Merriman has done it in the past. Uh Ken has done a lot of the videoing of stuff, and now both those gentlemen are uh doing photogrammetry where they actually go back and forth over a wreck with a scooter with a camera fastened to it and take thousands of pictures. Andrew has done a number of these. Ken will drive the boat and uh Andrew will go down and do the dive. And then uh Ken does the computer work, they bring the information back, download it, and uh it processes it and uh creates this 3D image. And you can see that on 3d shipwrecks.org. And otherwise, there'll be information about the GLS GLSPS dot org. And um, both are are voluntary situations, but uh what uh they're trying to do with the photogrammetry is document thousands of the shipwrecks in the Great Lakes. They'd like to do all of them, all of them haven't been found yet, but a lot of them have. And there's some government entities and other people that are able to do this that are contributing to that, and then they'll post them up on the website. And the value of this is that, like I mentioned with the America, it changes over time with weather. Uh, circumstances can change things, and um so they can go back and redo this and see what the difference was 10 years ago when they did the first documentation and see, you know, what has changed on the wreck. But what I find most interesting um is the architecture of the ships, the naval architecture that's underwater, you know, to see these ships they find that are the uh side wheelers and things like that. I mean, we've never seen those other than in pictures. And if you can see it in reality in 3D, it is just impressive as I'll get out. So that's really neat. One of the things they're also doing is uh you may be familiar with the SS Meteor ship over on Barker's Island, which is the last whaleback in the world above water, and they're making 3D printings based on that photogrammetry of the shipwrecks that they're finding and documenting um and putting them on display there. So it's the whaleback museum will be about not only that ship, but the history of the whaleback that was developed over time and different ships that uh you know have been you know sunk for different reasons. And uh they'll share that knowledge with people who aren't divers, and that's really kind of phenomenal to to be able to enjoy that. And um, you know, because a lot of them are too deep for most of us to dive. I don't do technical diving anymore. I'm staying above a hundred feet. It's more comfortable. You know, when you go deeper, there's more pressure, it's darker, and it gets colder. So it's like, okay, I enjoy diving, but I yeah, I want to be comfortable when I do it.

Mark Wolak. Host 31:03

Yeah, we were we were uh talking about that uh in preparation of this show with you, that there have to be times that the risk of going down is just too great. And and uh, you know, and you you can't do that without maybe a submarine camera or you know, some other technique other than sending a human down with uh with a camera.

Steven B. Daniel 31:29

That is true. And I think uh, you know, people like Ken Merriman and Bob Olson who documented with a camera the uh Thomas Friant that is in my book, and I think one of the pictures is uh one or two of the pictures is on the cover there. Um that was down at 300 feet, and other people have gone down to 400 feet in the ocean or somewhere else. And uh at that point, you know, you're really pushing the envelope with the technology that's available, and uh I think uh some people as they age, you know, our bodies are changing, and so it's no longer safe for us to go down to some of those depths. Um, I I would never go the 200 feet was my limit. I I didn't want to go any further. I I don't have the equipment. Usually you're into a rebreather then, but that takes a lot of specialized training and maintenance, and um you have to be very careful if you make a mistake, you won't be coming back. And um, so you have to pay attention to the things that are necessary to keep your gear in good shape and how to use it underwater and what depths you're at. But uh a dive like the Edmund Fitzgerald, 586 feet uh deep. Uh, it's been done with a diver that proved they could go down and touch the wreck and come back, but that's all they did. They couldn't stay there. And um, the guy that went down and did the change of the bell with the Great Lake Shipwreck Historical Society over in Whitefish Bay, um, they had uh, you know, that was a big operation with government ships and everything else, and they had permission to do it, and they talked to the families of the sort of the people that were on board to do it in a respectful manner. And they took the original bell off and replaced it with one that was ingrade with all the names of the sailors that perished on that wreck. And the they had a really interesting suit that was pressure built for pressure that was designed to go down and do that. And um, it wasn't regular scuba diving. I don't know if it was air fed from the surface or not, but that was uh that was a pretty difficult dive. And now, because of the remains on board, it is illegal for anyone to even go down there anymore. And I think that's fine. I think that depth is not safe for a scuba diver. That's just way beyond what we're able to do. And when uh what the the shipwreck group does uh with those wrecks they want to uh document that are maybe 600 feet deep or 400 feet deep, they'll um coordinate it with someone who has an ROV and uh get that to take the pictures or those drop cameras and get portions of the wreck that they do. That's what Ken and Jerry Eliason do. Uh Ken Merman and Jerry Eliason have done this a number of times. And um that is uh is really kind of neat. And then there's other people like Randy Beebe, he's done excellent drawings of shipwrecks underwater, like the Inoka. That's in my book. And uh there are other people that are doing the shipwreck discoveries too, and uh they just have to use drop cameras and that to record it. And a lot of times what they'll do is they'll go out and look for it, find and uh find it on a side scan sonar, and a blip will show up as an anomaly, and then they go back. That's when they drop the camera, they go down and they check it out and see what is this, and then they've that's how they find some of the wrecks. But they do a lot of research in the libraries and other places in the newspapers first, before so they can narrow down the area because a lot of times um wrecks aren't where you think they are. You know, people say, Oh, it's just out there, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But unless you were there that day and you punched it on your GPS, it's going to be somewhere else because you've got current drift, you've got wind and waves of a storm that may be happening. And um, the people that were in the boat that maybe escaped from it, the ship is heavier and it's maybe sitting somewhere, but it, you know, it may be nose-dived, and then it'll kind of glide over in a different pattern and uh end up on the bottom, plowing into the the clay bottom or sand bottom, whatever it is. And uh they'll be drifting off, you know. And when they say, Oh, it's about, you know, five miles over here this way or that way, it isn't always there. Very rare.

Mark Wolak. Host 36:23

The weight is surprising at first, solid, grounding, almost awkward on land. You waddle a little, conscious of hoses and buckles. Your breath already louder in your ears as you test the regulator. But the moment you slip beneath the surface, that heaviness dissolves. The water lifts every what felt clumsy becomes balanced, almost effortless. As if gras gravity has loosened its grip on you.

Joe Boyle, Host 36:55

Breathing underwater is the part that rewires your instincts. Every inhale comes with a soft mechanical hiss. Every exhale a trail of silver bubbles rising past your face. At first, it feels unnatural. Your mind insists you shouldn't be here, that breathing should be impossible. But slowly, breath by breath, your body accepts it. Your world narrows to the steady rhythm. Inhale, exhale, a quiet partnership between you and the tank on your back. It's calming in a way that's hard to explain, like the outside noise of life has been turned down.

Mark Wolak. Host 37:41

As you learn to move, you realize diving isn't about force, it's about control. A small kick sends you gliding forward. A slight adjustment of your breath changes your depth. You become aware of your body in a precise, almost meditative way. Your hands hover instead of a grab. Your movements slow, and they are deliberate. There's a kind of discipline to it, but also a sense of freedom, like flying in a slow motion pattern through a place humans weren't built to be.

Joe Boyle, Host 38:16

Over time, being a diver changes how you experience the world. You start to notice silence differently, not the absence of sound, but a presence of stillness. Down there time stretches, light filters and soft beams, colors shift, and everything feels suspended between motion and rest. Whether you're drifting over a reef or descending toward the outline of something long lost, there's always that quiet awareness you are a visitor here, sustained by air you carry with you. Move through a space that demands both respect and calm.

Coast Guard Auxiliary And Boating Safety

Mark Wolak. Host 38:59

And then, after enough dives, it becomes second nature. The gear, the breathing, the weightlessness. They stop feeling foreign. Instead they become part of you, like stepping into a familiar rhythm. For some divers, especially the kind who return again and again to the depth, it's not just an activity. It's a state of mind, a place where focus sharpens, distractions fade, and the boundary between you and the water feels just a little bit thinner. Stephen Daniel also served as district captain of the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary, the 9th Coast Guard District, Central Region. And we listened to him share some stories about helping people learn greater safety on the water.

Steven B. Daniel 39:57

The other thing I enjoyed doing with the Coast Guard Auxiliary was doing the boat inspections. And you had mentioned that, Mark, I think, earlier or somebody. And um, that helps people make sure that they have the right equipment before they go out on the water. In case something goes wrong, you better have an anchor, you better have good lines, you better have a fire extinguisher, and you better have absolutely life jackets. You know, life jackets will save a life, and only if you're wearing it. So people need to understand that. And I I like to wear one all the time just because you never know, you could lose your balance. And you know, I've been on boats with the rollers coming off uh, you know, from way across the lake, and they can throw you off balance. And you're on the deck and you're not hanging on, you could have a problem, and people have fallen into the water. Uh, so, anyways, so that can happen. But um, there's also, you know, we would do the parades and things like that to remind people that, you know, uh, let's celebrate the 4th of July. I've actually got a drawing going into the uh uh Duluth uh Art Institute members show coming up in April, and it's two flag bearers, one's me and one's one of my colleagues. But uh the idea is they were focused on the Declaration of Independence and these truths uh we hold uh or the we hold these true. And um, what I thought is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that's what the auxiliary does. We help people stay alive by wearing their life jackets and promoting boating safety, doing their boat inspections. They can take their boat anywhere they want in this country, and they have the freedom to do that, and we have the freedom to do so many different things, so that's the happiness, the pursuit of happiness. People can be happy in the water doing a lot of different things, including diving. So, so that's my message about the Coast Guard Resilient. There's a lot more you can do too. If people like to cook, they are always looking for um culinary experts that uh can get qualified to work on on different things. Yeah, there you go. You could you could do something, and um it's uh you could work on the spar. One of my friends uh uh did that. The he would go out on uh cruises for a week at a time, you know, because the buoy tenders got to do stuff all over the place, and he was good, and he got along with the but the people very well. The captain liked him and everybody, and uh he was part of the crew, and uh we were on one of the icebreaking cruises, and he was in the galley making hamburgers and stuff, so we all got to eat the hamburgers and stuff. So it was kind of neat to be part of that. It's uh I really enjoyed working with the active duty in a lot of different ways, and uh in the roles that I had, I was working with a lot of the leaders, and it was really fun to understand the strategies and how things had to happen, and when we talk about events coming up, how we would execute them and uh so on and so forth. And um, I've always enjoyed that part. I I enjoy being a leader, and I've always been a leader anywhere from Boy Scouts to uh business to volunteer organizations. So it was a nice reward. It took me seven years to write that book or to put everything together, and I really appreciated all the people that provided information on where to go to find these things. And I mentioned some of those names earlier, but uh that I couldn't have done it without their help, you know. And it was nice to bring it together. And everybody that helped me, I gave a free book. They think the historical society gave me a hundred books, and I gave every one of them away. And uh, there was a lot of people that helped me. Even the uh historical people I talked to around the lakes that provided pictures that uh um were very useful to explain how what the ship looked like before it sank. That was really kind of fun.

Mark Wolak. Host 43:41

That's great.

Why Write The Book And Leave Artifacts

Joe Boyle, Host 43:42

Joe, anything else? If anything, I was gonna say uh you know, you had you had a wealth of knowledge. You had the knowledge to write a book like that, but what what was the spark? When did you make that decision? Like, you know what, I'm gonna write a book. About shipwrecks.

Steven B. Daniel 44:02

Oh, that was well, if it took seven years and published in 2008, uh, that would probably be 2001, early 2000. I guess uh I didn't really plan on doing a book, but I thought there's a need out there to put a collection of these things together, and why don't we do it in a way that we can make it safe, make it easy, and make it convenient for people to go out and enjoy the sport of scuba diving and to preserve the history. And there'll be uh statements in there about you know, look, take pictures, leave bubbles, but don't take anything off the wreck. Because my kids who are now in their fifties, but now I got grandkids, um if if I took stuff off the wreck, then it wouldn't be there for them to see it. So that's the logic that we want to do. Plus, it's gonna rust or break or get tossed uh if you pull it off the wreck, and nobody else will have that opportunity to enjoy it as you did. And I think it everything has a place, and I think it's best in its historical place. And uh unless it's a a museum situation where they've they've got uh proper permission to pull certain things off and stuff like that. But um typically it's best to leave it on board. And I've had to put a lot of I'm the put it back chairman for uh the GLSPS, so um, I'm involved with getting things returned when people are tired of them. Yeah, they're just old pieces of rusty metal, and we have put things on different wrecks, and I've got another project coming up right now, and I'll connect them with the museum because once it's out of the water and if it's in a good state, you might as well leave it out.

Joe Boyle, Host 45:42

Boy, Mark, I was impressed with uh Steven's respect for the Great Lakes, uh the safety first uh attitude that he has, but the uh amount of dives that he's done. Five hundred plus dives, wow.

Mark Wolak. Host 46:02

Yeah, that's amazing. You know, if you think about how many dives can you do in a season, maybe you could do ten. Well then that's fifty seasons.

Joe Boyle, Host 46:12

And and just all the the the prep and maintenance that goes into your maintaining your equipment and preparing for a dive like that.

Mark Wolak. Host 46:21

Yeah, it's remarkable. I'm I'm struck by uh the curiosity to dive. I've never had that curiosity to go down and examine things at the bottom of the water, but man, he's got a an amazing curiosity and commitment.

Joe Boyle, Host 46:39

I have a lot of respect for people that do that, but I outside of doing some snorkeling, I don't I don't see myself doing that. That's that's not part of me. I mean, I've jumped out of airplanes, but I I'm not gonna go down a hundred plus feet, that's for sure.

Mark Wolak. Host 46:56

And you know, you think about the absolute focus. You have to be in the moment. You cannot be daydreaming about what you're gonna do, you know, later that day or tomorrow. You need to be focused on what you're doing right now. Right.

Joe Boyle, Host 47:14

Like getting ready for a sporting event.

Mark Wolak. Host 47:16

Yeah. You know, one of the things I read was that there are over thirty thousand lives lost on the Great Lakes over time. And I found that twice in in reference to the Great Lakes. I I was struck by how many people lost their lives, but then also all the ships that went down. Right.

Joe Boyle, Host 47:35

Well, and and that's just since they've kept records. Just think of, you know, three hundred years ago, four hundred years ago.

Mark Wolak. Host 47:45

Yeah, it's really great that he's willing to do the work to prepare for a safe dive for other people, for other divers. Interesting guy. Yeah, it's great. He had a lot of knowledge, and I really enjoyed listening to him and share his experience. Great story. Me too. Two books that are written by Stephen B. Daniel are SS America, a diver's vision of the past. Second edition was 2001, and Shipwrecks Along Lake Superior, North Shore, published in 2008.

Joe Boyle, Host 48:24

The only song chosen for this episode was The Last Farewell by Roger Whitaker off his New World in the Morning album from nineteen seventy-one, which sold more than ten million copies.

Roger Whitaker song 49:38

More dearly than the spoken word, for you, and I have loved you, more dearly than the spoken word, I heard there's a wicked war. And the taste of war I've no so very well Even now I see the foreign flag The cuts on fire as we tail it to hell. I have no fear of death, it brings no stop, but how be too will be this last farewell. For you are beautiful, and I have loved you dearly, more dearly than what spoken word can tell. For you who are few, and I have