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 One visit to
America's Historic
Lakes and it’s easy to see Jim Millard’s enthusiasm for the beauty and
the history of our northern lakes. It's not surprising that his interest
isn’t limited to their surfaces and shores.
Aerial photo
courtesy of Doug and Mark
Harwood.
My name is Ed Scollon; Jim
has asked me to share with the visitors to
America's
Historic Lakes a
diver's perspective of what it's like to work on an
underwater historic site. Many friends and professionals are involved with the
Valcour Bay Research Projects'
efforts; it’s a true honor and privilege to share the experiences of the
group.
Because of their beauty or history, some places just have a presence to them. For
both reasons, Valcour Bay is such a place. Whether it’s above the surface
or below, the more you know of her past, the stronger that presence
becomes.
History and scuba diving are alike, in that they’re
a medium to worlds so different from
 our own. From relics
and records, we can better imagine worlds of long ago.
The more we learn, the more accurate those images become and
it’s the closest thing we
have to actually traveling through time. With diving,
floating and sinking seem as real as flying and gliding.
When we work at Valcour Bay, it's easy to imagine we're flying
through time as we glide over its hallowed ground.
Fort Ticonderoga Curator and VBRP diver
Chris Fox in the depths of Valcour Bay.
The cold, fresh waters of
the lake preserve much of what falls to its floor. Valcour Bay’s relics
and wrecks have been the subject of many searches over the years. The
most notable of which, would be Colonel Lorenzo Hagglund’s raisings of the
Royal Savage and the Philadelphia in the mid 1930’s.
Colonel Hagglund eloquently described the Philadelphia’s discovery,
raising and preservation in the appropriately titled, A Page From the
Past. Through the efforts of the Valcour Bay Research Project (VBRP),
we’ve recently uncovered another page from the same chapter. Some of what
we’ve begun to uncover and learn from the depths of the bay is in the
pages that follow.
Continue on to Part II
The Valcour Bay Research Project
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