delight
A volunteer cleaning up trash found a 1,000-year-old canoe
He was collecting trash. He found a thousand years.
A volunteer trash cleanup dive in Wisconsin's Pewaukee Lake turned up something older than the state, older than the country. Mark Schachtner, a 45-year-old diver with the 4 Seasons Scuba Diving Club, was about to end his session on May 6 when he spotted a long object on the lake floor. He swam closer and realized it was a canoe. Possibly a very old one. "I always keep my eyes peeled," Schachtner told the Wisconsin State Journal. "The whole thing was sticking out." The Wisconsin Historical Society later dated the white oak dugout to roughly 1,000 years ago, likely carved by Indigenous communities using fire and stone around 992 to 1049 C.E. It measures 17.3 feet long and sits about 15 feet underwater. At the request of Wisconsin's tribal nations, it will stay exactly where it is. Larry Plucinski, a tribal historic preservation officer, suspects more are waiting. "No matter what lake you go to, there's probably canoes out there."
