A mysterious and ghostly shipwreck has washed up on the coast of Newfoundland, baffling and exciting residents with its sudden appearance.
The hull of the wooden ship appeared along the shoreline near Cape Ray, a tiny community on the southwest coast of Newfoundland, earlier this month — an area known to be the final resting site of at least eight other ships that fell victim to bad weather over the years.
It was reportedly spotted by local resident Gordon Blackmore, who was hunting seabirds on Jan. 20 when he spotted a dark shadow in the water.
According to the Canadian Press, he rushed home to tell his mother, Wanda Blackmore, about what he spotted and, in disbelief, she grabbed her jacket and went to the beach to see it for herself.
“It’s amazing, there is no other word for it,” Wanda said.
Now, the provincial government is sending a team to investigate the wreck and hopefully identify and preserve what remains, but the team is at the mercy of the same weather and tides that might have played a part in the ship’s demise.
Local residents fear that the powerful tides will wash the ship away as quickly as it appeared — resident Bert Osmond told The Canadian Press that the ship has already moved dozens of metres from where it was first spotted — and they’re devising a plan to help tie down the ship while they wait for experts to get to work.
“A lot of people’s concern is we don’t want it to go back out to sea,” Osmond said this week. “If it goes back out to sea, we’re not going to know anything.”
Osmond has been keeping a daily vigil over the site and pictures show that he and others recently secured rope around the ship to stop it from floating back out to sea.
A Facebook page for Cape Ray locals is teeming with citizen researchers, who are posting photos of the wreck and theories about how old the ship might be and how it ended up so close to shore.
Pictures of the wreck point to the ship being quite old. Wooden dowels used as nails have led many to believe the boat was constructed in the 1800s. Copper pegs have been spotted in the photographs, too, which were a common construction method from that time.
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Neil Burgess, president of the Shipwreck Preservation Society of Newfoundland and Labrador, confirmed in a post to the Facebook page that his group, along with the Provincial Archaeology Office of Newfoundland and Labrador, will attempt an archaeological survey of the wreck this weekend. They plan to take measurements, as well as collect wood samples for aging.
“A great opportunity to investigate our nautical history!” he shared.
As far as how the ship got there, it’s widely speculated by experts and residents that it may have been dislodged during post-tropical storm Fiona, which destroyed houses in the area and washed away large swaths of the shoreline when it made landfall in 2022.
Once dislodged from the seabed, strong waves may have pushed the remains of the wreck to the shore.
“It is a part of our history that has just been awakened. Some descendants will still want to know the names and the places where their ancestors were lost in the icy waters off our shores. It would be good for all of us if we could offer some history we know and a place for remembrance. At least a marker,” wrote resident Elizabeth Gover. “This is our history. Let’s find out.”
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