Page 11 - IAV Digital Magazine #534

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Underwater Scooter Ride Leads to Discovery of 1,200-Year-Old Canoe
BY TOBIAS CAR- ROLL
It’s not hard to see the appeal of an underwater scooter. Zipping around in the drink and getting a sense of life at the bottom of a lake, river or ocean sounds both fascinating and fun. And, as it turns out, travel- ing via underwa- ter scooter can also have some side benefits, such as helping to discover a canoe that’s been sub- merged for over a thousand years.
Writing at The Guardian, Alexandra Villarreal has details on such a discovery, which took place in Wisconsin’s Lake Mendota. The process by which
it was discovered was unexpected. Friends Tamara Thomsen and Mallory Dragt were scooting around underwa- ter when they
noticed something that looked like a log 27 feet below the surface. Thomsen was intrigued — and because she’s a maritime archae-
ologist at the Wisconsin Historical Society, she was in a posi- tion to investigate things further.
That investigation
led to the recov- ery of the canoe, which is believed to be 1,200 years old. It was likely made by the People of the Big Water, ancestors
of today’s Ho- Chunk Nation.
What’s next for the canoe? A long process of preser- vation. The Wisconsin Historical Society described the process in a post on Instagram, noting that the canoe has already been “placed into a custom-built stor- age vat contain- ing water and a bio-deterrent to protect the canoe from physical deterioration,” but that the entire preservation will take about three years. That might seem like a long wait, but com- pared to how long the canoe was underwater, it’s more like the blink of an eye. History’s funny like that.
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