LaSalle Shipwreck? With Courtroom Battle Over, Expedition Begins

By JoshMogerman in News on Jun 9, 2013 7:00PM

OK, we’ve admittedly got a thing for shipwrecks. And when it turns out that one gets compared to finding Noah’s ark in Lake Michigan, well, we pay attention. And that has been a big problem for the folks who may have found the wreck of the first big ship in the Great Lakes—lots of people, and governments, paid attention to the discovery of what might be the first big ship in the Great Lakes.

Back in 2004 divers came upon what they thought was Le Griffon: the storied boat built and captained by legendary explorer Rene-Robert Sieur de La Salle, which mysteriously disappeared near Green Bay in the late 17th century. The wreck hunters’ announcement, bolstered by a Field Museum analysis confirming the age of wood brought up from the Lake, set off a wave of lawsuits pitting their claim against the interests of France and the State of Michigan. The boat sat on Lake Michigan’s sandy (and quagga musseled) bottom for six more years while the legal issues were sorted. Now that all parties’ interests are represented, exploration resumes next week. The search is being watched closely north of the border, as the wreckage has historical significance on both sides of the Lakes:

The first sailing ship on the Great Lakes, the Griffon was built in 1679 near present-day Niagara Falls, Ont., by the famed French explorer Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, and symbolized the ambitions of New France to construct and control a vast fur trade empire in the heartland of North America.

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La Salle is a major historical figure in both Canadian and American history, and is best known in the U.S. as the first European to reach the mouth of the Mississippi River and as the founder of historic Louisiana — the expansive French territory later purchased by the fledgling United States.

LaSalle is a big deal in Illinois history too. He and his men spent a lot of time on the Kankakee and Illinois Rivers, building forts on what is now Starved Rock State Park, Peoria, and the Illinois side of Big Muddy. And while he is more closely associated with Great Lakes ports further north of Chicago, his name is stamped on the street running through one of the most iconic urban canyons in America below the Chicago Board of Trade.

Lake Michigan helps make this town beautiful and livable, but Le Griffon is one of many reminders that for centuries, the Lakes have also been a potential death trap for mariners.

Highlight Reel: Diving on Le Griffon from David Ruck on Vimeo.