Volunteers excavate shipwreck on MDI
- On 16/07/2012
- In Underwater Archeology
- 0 comments
By Bill Trotter - Bangor Daily News
Twice a day, 365 days a year for more than 60 years, the tide has come in and then drained out again, washing mud, brine and small aquatic life forms over its timbers.
Exactly how long the ship’s skeleton has been lying in the mud along this hidden section of MDI’s shoreline is unknown, but this past week a group of people have been making the short trek through the woods from the road each day to learn what they can about it.
Led by marine archaeologist Franklin Price, who grew up in the Tremont village of Bernard, about 20 people have been measuring and diagramming its decayed ribs and keel.
At the request of Acadia National Park, which has an easement along the shoreline where the wreck rests, its location is not being disclosed by the Bangor Daily News in order to help prevent people from tampering with the site.
On Saturday, seven people, including four young interns, were taking photographs and measurements of the timbers under the hot sun. As they drew and diagrammed the pieces protruding from the mud, they discussed how they likely were fastened together.
“I don’t know what happened here,” Price told Christa Shere, a College of the Atlantic student interning on the project. “I don’t know if these two pieces were actually in this side when this thing flipped over and broke and fell probably this way.”
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