Featured Lake Lake Champlain Arthur B. Cohn, T.O. Manley, P.L. Manley, Eric Smeltzer, & Mary C. Watzin Research and Management in the Presence of History ake Champlain (Figure 1) is one of the most beautiful places on the planet and also one of the most historic. The L 2 193-km-long lake and its 21,326-km drainage basin are shared by the states of Vermont and New York and the Province of Quebec (Figure 2). Lake Champlain is one of the largest lakes in North America, with a surface area of 1,127 km2, a mean depth of 20 m, and a maximum depth over 120 m. Those of us who study and manage the lake’s cultural and natural resources do so with a deep appreciation for the lake’s prominent place in North American history and its remarkable physical and ecological features. History and Underwater Cultural Heritage Figure 1. View of the broad, open waters of Lake Champlain. The record of human events in the Lake Champlain Basin and the recent discovery of a vast collection of intact underwater cultural sites offer a cultural legacy that has the potential to enrich generations of residents and visitors. With modern remote sensing equipment, computer systems, and positioning technology, finding shipwrecks has become the easiest part of our work. Determining how to best manage these publicly owned treasures is the next great challenge of our generation. Human occupation along the shores of Lake Champlain began roughly 12,000 years ago as Paleo-Indian cultures hunted game in the shadow of the receding glaciers. For millennia, native cultures flourished; however, with the 1609 arrival of French explorer Samuel de Champlain (Figure 3), the whole complexion of Figure 2. Location of the Lake Champlain Basin. Source: Lake Champlain Basin Program. Winter 2007 / LAKELINE 46 to accommodate the ever-increasing this mission, the Maritime Museum has lake traffic. Burlington, Vermont and built two large and archaeologically Plattsburgh and Whitehall in New York correct replicas to help engage the public emerged as the lake’s major commercial in the history and archaeology of the centers. Today, preserved lake architecture region. The Revolutionary War gunboat, Lake Champlain and the historic sites at Mount Philadelphia II, is modeled after one of Independence, Fort Ticonderoga, Crown Benedict Arnold’s warships that sunk at Point, and Chimney Point are tangible the Battle of Valcour Island on October Arthur B. Cohn, T.O. Manley, P.L. Manley, Eric Smeltzer, & Mary C. Watzin and viewable reflections of the lake’s 11th, 1776. The Philadelphia II was military and commercial past. However, it launched in 1991 and helps tell the story Figure 3. Nineteenth-century image depicting is from recent underwater surveys that we of this important chapter of American Samuel de Champlain, along with two now know that a vast collection of intact history. The canal schooner Lois McClure Frenchmen and 60 Native American warriors, wooden shipwrecks, also reflecting on the is a full-sized working replica patterned entering the lake in 24 birch bark canoes. years of military conflict and commerce, after two shipwrecks built in 1862 and Source: Lake Champlain Maritime Museum had found their way to the bottom of the which now are sunk in Burlington Harbor collection. lake. (Figure 5). Since its launching in 2004, The collection of intact wooden the McClure has traveled the region’s human history in the region changed. ships resting on the lake’s bottom is, by waterways as an ambassador of the lake’s For the next 150 years military conflict any measure, extraordinary. In the almost history and underwater resources. between France and Britain dominated three decades of survey, documentation In 1996, Lake Champlain Maritime the Champlain Valley. It was the lake’s and development of management Museum, in partnership with Middlebury geographic position in those nations’ practices focused on this previously College and with public-private contested colonial hinterlands that led unknown collection, the shipwrecks have funding, initiated a landmark “Whole to its intensive military use, with forts added significantly to our understanding Lake Survey,” a ten-year project to erected along its shorelines and warships of the past. The collection contains Native systematically inventory the entire bottom sailing its waters. The end of hostilities American watercraft, French and British of Lake Champlain. Launched as a came with the British victory in 1763, but warships from the Colonial period, and response to the invasion of zebra mussels, peace was short-lived with the American American and British warships from the survey, utilizing state-of-the art survey Revolution soon engulfing the region. the Revolutionary War and the War equipment, located 80 new shipwrecks The early years of the struggle for of 1812. One of the most remarkable and produced a new bottom bathymetry independence saw considerable activity submerged cultural resources is not a map of Lake Champlain. Arguably, the on Lake Champlain, with the centerpiece ship at all, but a “Great Bridge” built by most important shipwreck discovered of the saga occurring in October 1776 American forces during the winter of is the Spitfire, a survivor from Benedict at the Battle of Valcour Island. In this 1777 to span between Fort Ticonderoga Arnold’s Valcour Island fleet. The 1776 pivotal naval engagement, Commodore and Mount Independence. Commercial warship sits upright, in deep water, with Benedict Arnold fought the British boats, particularly the once-numerous its mast still standing and its bow cannon in perhaps the most important naval canal boats, make up the largest number still searching for the enemy (Figure 6). engagement of the war. The naval contest of submerged ships. The Phoenix, the Determining how best to manage and helped to bring about the American oldest known surviving steamboat and preserve Spitfire for future generations is victory at Saratoga one year later. With the unique Burlington Horse Ferry a complicated task. Our mission is to help the 1783 Peace of Paris, settlement of are very special survivors of their day. define the best management options to the Champlain Valley began in earnest as The discovery of the General Butler preserve and share this important cultural wooden sloops, schooners, and cross- in 1980 led to a rediscovery of the legacy for this and future generations. ferries appeared. Lake Champlain’s final lake’s innovative sailing-canal boats. In 2009, the region will military episode occurred during the War The Vermont Division for Historic commemorate the 400th anniversary of 1812, with a fleet action between the Preservation provides reasonable diver of Samuel de Champlain’s brief, but Royal Navy and the U.S. Navy at the access to appropriate underwater sites profound, visit to the lake that now bears Battle of Plattsburgh Bay in September through the “Underwater Historic his name. It will provide an opportunity 1814. The decisive American victory Preserve Program,” one of the first in the to re-examine the incredible record of helped bring an honorable end to the country (Figure 4). history that helps define our world today. war. During the remainder of the 19th The Lake Champlain Maritime This cultural legacy has left us with century, the development of steamboats Museum is a leader in the study, special places both around and under and the construction of canals transformed interpretation, and preservation of the the lake that provide a window into the Lake Champlain into a key section of a region’s shipwrecks. The museum has Old World and the New. These places dynamic commercial superhighway. relationships with many federal and state offer fascinating stories and important Lake-port communities grew and agencies and educational institutions to lessons that give Lake Champlain the prospered as breakwaters, lighthouses, assist with the best management of the potential to provide a very special cultural wharves, and warehouses were built region’s submerged collection. To further perspective. Winter 2007 / LAKELINE 47 like a large river. However, beneath the surface the flow is far more complicated. So what makes Lake Champlain so unique among the other lakes in the world? The answer appears to be that it lies between two mountain ranges that preferentially channel the wind northward over Lake Champlain’s long North-South axis and second, its unique bathymetric structure and size. The wind sets up an extremely long-standing wave or seiche (~200 km) that is hidden from everyone’s view. If you have rocked your coffee cup from side to side and looked at the resulting motion of the fluid as it sloshes back-and-forth, you have actually set up what is known in physics as the “fundamental standing wave”. Though it’s difficult to interpret its direction of motion Figure 4. Divers exploring a site in the Lake Champlain Underwater Historic Preserve. Source: because the coffee simply rises and falls Lake Champlain Maritime Museum collection. on either end of the cup, it does oscillate with a very stable period. Every closed container has its own fundamental seiche that can be mathematically determined based on the length of the container and the depth of the fluid within it. Lake Champlain’s fundamental surface seiche is about four hours, a period that has been confirmed using a series of water level gauges around the perimeter of the lake. This surface seiche has elevation changes of only a few inches and does not significantly contribute to the circulation dynamics of the lake. The unique hydrodynamic aspect of Lake Champlain is its hidden, internal seiche. The internal seiche is the driving force behind a majority of the circulation of Lake Champlain during periods of thermal stratification (April to November). In contrast to the surface seiche, the internal seiche is found along the boundary separating the warm upper and cold deep layers of the lake (i.e., the metalimnion).