Canada’s oldest shipwreck to be resurrected in replica of 16th-century Basque galleon

It’s the oldest shipwreck ever found in Canada and one of the most important in the world: a 16th-century Basque whaling galleon that lies at the bottom of Labrador’s Red Bay, a sunken relic from the Age of Discovery that symbolizes the early spread of European civilization — and commerce — to the New World.

Now, the 450-year-old San Juan, a jumble of thick beams and broken barrels lying in shallow waters off the site of a 1560s-era whaling station in the Strait of Belle Isle, is to be resurrected by a team of Spanish maritime heritage experts planning to construct a full-scale, seaworthy replica of the original 16-metre, three-masted vessel.

Parks Canada underwater archeologists, who discovered the 250-tonne San Juan in 1978 after following documented clues about a lost galleon traced by federal archivist Selma Barkham, will meet this week with Spanish officials to begin sharing decades of amassed research on the ship’s design and construction, Postmedia News has learned.

Then, to mark the Basque city of San Sebastian’s year as Europe’s “cultural capital” in 2016, Spain expects to christen its floating tribute to the whaling crews that — for several decades during the 16th century — transported millions of barrels of whale oil to Europe from the future Canada, a treasure every bit as valuable at the time as the gold taken by Spanish conquistadors from more southerly parts of the Americas.

“Right from the start, we thought this was a really, really great idea,” said Marc-André Bernier, Parks Canada’s chief of underwater archeology. “For archeologists, this is basically the ultimate final product. You’re taking all of the research from a site that’s been excavated, then you take it to the maximum in experimental archeology,” physically recreating “what is lost.”

For Robert Grenier, Bernier’s predecessor as Canada’s top marine archeologist and the leader of the Red Bay discoveries more than three decades ago, the planned construction of a San Juan replica is “like a dream.”

The 75-year-old Grenier, whose work at Red Bay was featured in a National Geographic cover story in 1985, is now retired but has agreed to serve as a consultant to Spanish shipbuilders on the San Juan project.

He previously collaborated with Basque heritage experts on the recreation of a chalupa — a smaller boat used by whaling crews to pursue and harpoon bowhead and right whales — that was also found at the Red Bay site.

“To the Basques, this is the Holy Grail,” he said of the planned San Juan replica on Monday, while visiting a display on Basque whaling operations at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Gatineau, Que.

The Canada Hall exhibit features a 20-to-one scale model of a Basque whaling galleon, as well as a full-scale reproduction of the stern of the ship.

“They are so thankful to us — Canada and Parks Canada — to have restored to them the glory of their golden age,” said Grenier.

The replica galleon to be built in the coming years is expected to travel between European cities during 2016 to mark the San Sebastian celebrations, then set sail for Labrador and other East Coast destinations in 2017 — in time for the 150th anniversary of Confederation — to help spread awareness of the deep historical connection between Canada and Spain.

“It’s their heritage,” Bernier said of the Basques, who live in the coastal region straddling the border of northeast Spain and southwest France. “But it’s also a shared heritage.”

Significantly, Bernier noted, the Red Bay wreck dates from an era before European shipbuilding had developed to the point of creating blueprints prior to construction.

“There were no ships’ plans — they were built with traditional knowledge,” he said. “Everything was in the shipbuilders’ minds. That’s why the data from the archeology is so critical.”

In the decades following the New World discoveries of Christopher Columbus and John Cabot, the expert shipbuilders, sailors, fishermen and whalers from the Basque country began making transatlantic voyages to exploit coastal Canada’s cod and whale populations.

Lamp oil from whales killed in the Strait of Belle Isle became the key commodity for Basque entrepreneurs, who developed shoreline “factories” to render hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil and organized regular shipping schedules between Canada and Europe to deliver the product.

The sinking of the San Juan, which was loaded with thousands of barrels of rendered whale blubber when it foundered close to the Red Bay shore in 1565, was essentially Canada’s first oil-tanker disaster. Much of the cargo was, however, recovered before the vessel was crushed by winter ice.

Although the presence of Basque whalers in 16th-century Canada was long known to historians, it wasn’t until Barkham presented fresh evidence at an Ottawa archeological conference in 1977 that plans were made to search for physical traces of the whalers’ activities in present-day Labrador.

Along with the wreck of the San Juan, Parks Canada archeologists eventually found traces of three other galleon-class cargo ships, as well as the well-preserved chalupa rowboat.

Land-based excavations led by Newfoundland archeologist James Tuck also yielded burial sites, clothing, tools and countless other relics that recalled a time when hundreds of Basque workers might spend a whaling season in 16th-century Canada.

Today, Red Bay is a national historic site and Parks Canada tourist centre. An image of the San Juan is used by the United Nations as its logo to promote the preservation and celebration of the world’s underwater heritage, and a five-volume, 2008 compendium of Red Bay archeology written by Grenier and Bernier has been hailed internationally as a model for scholarly research on shipwrecks.

Red Bay is a leading contender to become Canada’s next UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Thanks to Canada.com

Kathy Dowsett
www.kirkscubagear.com

HMS Investigator (1848)

HMS Investigator was a merchant ship purchased in 1848 to search for Sir John Franklin's lost expedition. She made two voyages to the Arctic and had to be abandoned in 1853 after becoming trapped in the ice. Her wreckage was found in July 2010 on Banks Island, in the Beaufort Sea. She was the fourth ship of the Royal Navy to bear the name.

Built at Scotts of Greenock and running 422 tonnes, Investigator was purchased by the Admiralty in February 1848 and was fitted for Arctic exploration by R. & H. Green at Blackwall Yard.

She was strengthened for Arctic service by William M. Rice, Master Shipwright of Woolwich Dockyard. She was extensively strengthened with timber (teak, English oak, Canadian elm) and 5⁄16 inch (8 mm) steel plating. Ten pairs of iron diagonal riders were set in the hold, with ten pairs of diagonal plates on the sides of the vessel between decks. To cope with snow and ice loads, the upper decks were doubled with 3-inch (76 mm) fir planking. Preston's Patent Ventilating Illuminators were installed to improve light and ventilation. Sylvester's Warming Apparatus, a modern stove system capable of warming the entire ship, was also employed with good results. The same or similar device had been used by William Edward Parry in 1821 to prevent condensation and aerate the lowest deck.

Later in 1848, she accompanied Enterprise on James Clark Ross's expedition to find the missing Sir John Franklin. Also aboard Investigator on this expedition was the naturalist Edward Adams. She was commanded for the return voyage by Robert McClure, but became trapped in the ice, and was abandoned on 3 June 1853 in Mercy Bay, where she had been held for nearly three years. The following year, she was inspected by crews of the Resolute, still frozen in, and reported to be in fair condition despite having taken on some water during the summer thaw.

Unlike the loss of Erebus and Terror, the events surrounding Investigator's abandonment are not a mystery. McClure provided an official account of the journey, and the ship's surgeon Alexander Armstrong published an unofficial account in 1857. However, the location of the wreckage was not known for over 150 years because of difficulties reaching the area, which is inhospitable and often covered in ice.

Oral traditions of the Inuit tell stories of the ship. The abandoned ship was a source of copper and iron for the indigenous people in the area; metal nails were missing from smaller boats on the shore when they were discovered. One Inuit account from 1910 noted that "one year she had still been on the beach and the next year she was gone without a trace". When Canadian anthropologist Vilhjalmur Stefansson reached Mercy Bay in 1915 during his voyage to the Arctic, he failed to find her remains. After meeting the Inuit who made pilgrimages to the wreckage, he suggested a link between the Investigator's stranding and the absence of muskoxen on Banks Island. He speculated that the Inuit had killed off the animals during their journeys to and from the wreckage over the 40 years since abandonment. The muskoxen have since repopulated the island and now number nearly 50,000.

In July 2010, a team of Parks Canada scientists, archaeologists, and surveyors began searching for the sunken Investigator in Mercy Bay at the northern tip of Aulavik National Park. It was the first expedition to search for the ship. The team arrived on Banks Island in the Beaufort Sea on 22 July and began a sonar scan of the area three days later. The ship was detected in the scan 15 minutes later. In order to confirm the discovery, the team made more than a dozen sweeps of the area over the next hour. Its remains were discovered on the shores of the island with the deck of the ship about eight metres below the surface. According to Ifan Thomas, a superintendent with Parks Canada, the ship was found "sitting upright in silt; the three masts have been removed, probably by ice". The cold arctic water prevented the outer deck from deteriorating quickly. There are no plans to raise the ship's remains, although the team will send a remotely operated underwater vehicle to take photos of the underwater portion of the ship.

A team of six Parks Canada archaeologists, led by Marc-Andre Bernier, scheduled dives on the Investigator site for 15 days beginning on 10 July 2011 to gather detailed photographic documentation and mapping of the wreck. This will be the first human contact with the wreck, which lies partially buried in silt 150 meters off the north shore of Banks Island.

Thanks to Wikipedia


Kathy Dowsett

www.kirkscubagear.com