Archive for June, 2010

June 17th, 2010

A.J. Goddard Back in the News

Yukon Government News Release…

WHITEHORSE – Tourism and Culture Minister Elaine Taylor is pleased to announce the designation of the A.J. Goddard shipwreck, the sole remaining example of the small sternwheelers used during the Klondike Gold Rush, as a Yukon Historic Site under the Historic Resources Act… “The Yukon government is pleased to designate this important piece of our history,”

Tourism and Culture Minister Elaine Taylor said. “The A.J. Goddard is not only a testament to the ingenuity, sense of adventure and determination of those men and women who took part in the Klondike Gold Rush, but also to the key role that the river and sternwheelers played in the economic development of Yukon.” Link to the full release here.

Watch Canada’s national television network CBC coverage (Goddard piece approx. at 36min mark of the broadcast video) of this summer’s return to the Yukon by the international archaeological team led by INA’s John Pollack and including Lindsay Thomas, Texas A&M Nautical Archaeology Program graduate student and the Yukon’s, Dave Davidge who was the first to locate the wreck in 2008.

An international team of archaeologists discovered the perfectly preserved steamboat, A.J. Goddard from the Klondike Gold Rush lying in the freezing waters of Lake Laberge, in the subarctic wilderness of Canada’s Yukon. Their images of the sternwheeler were the first views of the frontier steamer since it disappeared in a winter storm on the lake in October 1901. Only two members of the five man crew survived, and Goddard’s location remained a mystery for one hundred and seven years.

The wreck was found during a survey of Klondike Gold Rush wrecks by an international team from the Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA), the Yukon Transportation Museum, and the Yukon government led by INA Research Associate John Pollack. The survey, ongoing since 2005, is a collaborative project designed to pinpoint and document the dozens of wrecks that mark the river and lake routes once used by gold seeking “stampeders” during the last great gold rush at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century.

While the team has documented dozens of broken and abandoned steamers off the Yukon’s rivers, the discovery of Goddard is the first find of an untouched ship from the Gold Rush. Finding Goddard has been a dream of many years for team member Doug Davidge of the Yukon Transportation Museum.

Learn more about this and other archaeological work in Canada’s Yukon here.

June 17th, 2010

Building the INA Endowment

INA Launches a new Fundraising Campaign to build its nearly $5 million endowment to $30 million in the next five years and provide $1.5 million each year to enable INA researchers to seek out the world’s most significant shipwrecks and nautical sites, many of them at risk of loss from salvage, trawling and looting. This important state-of-the-art scientific work will be aimed at preserving and sharing the unique stories and insights into human history, still hidden beneath the seas.

The INA Endowment was created as a stable and sustainable fund to help maintain INA as a world leader in nautical archaeology. Managed by the INA Foundation who wisely invests the funds and provides INA with an annual 5% (five percent) distribution, the Endowment support INA’s work around the world. Through the endowment, INA  provides annual grants to support qualified researchers and scientists to discover and excavate significant shipwrecks and underwater sites. The endowment also supports the Institute’s Bodrum Center and its role as the Eastern Mediterranean center for conservation, analysis, research, publication. And an expanded endowment will support the “behind the scenes” work to research, write, edit and prepare the results of years of dedicated work underwater and in the laboratories, and ultimately to share this knowledge with the public and new generations of students and scholars, through distribution in print, film & multimedia and online. Learn more about the INA Endowment and INA Research and other work at inadiscover.com.


June 15th, 2010

INA Welcomes Frederick “Fritz” Hanselmann

Frederick “Fritz” Hanselmann has just joined the INA team as its Field Archaeologist and Dive Safety Officer. While INA has employed individuals in both capacities in the past, this is the first time the two duties have been combined. Hanselmann, a PhD candidate in Anthropology from Indiana University, has strong credentials as a dive professional, and is considered a talented emerging scholar in nautical and maritime archaeology.

Hanselmann’s duties include a comprehensive overhaul of INA’s diving program, project director’s manuals, the creation of modular equipment packages to support INA field teams, the establishment of an INA Dive Control Board, and monitoring and assisting INA archaeological projects around the globe. He will work closely with INA’s global team of research associates and affiliated scholars, and be an important liaison with INA’s principal partners at Texas A&M University and its world-class Nautical Archaeology Program.

INA President and CEO James Delgado explains that “we are delighted to have someone of Fritz’s caliber join INA. Fritz helps build INA’s capacity to be responsive to increased demands in archaeological assessment of important and endangered sites, and to accommodate and respond to increasingly complex and stringent standards and regulations for dive safety.” Learn more about Fritz and INA activities at inadiscover.com.