I am sorry to report that the “spoon” artifact has been removed from the wreck of the Rothesay, near Prescott Ontario.

Thankfully this archaeological treasure was thoroughly documented by NAS students last fall. Hope is held that the looters will see the errors of their ways and the spoon will be put back where it was found.

The historic Rothesay spoon as documented last fall.

While I was in a Save Ontario Shipwrecks board meeting last weekend, my fellow SOS Hamilton members were in Ottawa at the National Archives. They were having just as much fun sifting through dusty boxes in search of shipwrecks. Now you might think that in a dusty box is not the best place to look for a shipwreck. After all, think of how big the box would have to be to look inside and not see a shipwreck! As it turns out, many wreck finds start or end with archival searches.

The team at the archives reported on two wrecks that they found information for. One is the barge “Pitts No. 4” Official No 197234 removed from Toronto Harbour and scuttled April 15 1971. The other is the yacht “Patricia” also scuttled on June 17 1965.

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