Deep sea divers have uncovered an extraordinary find at the bottom of one of the Great Lakes: the HMS Ontario, a 22-gun British sloop that sank in 1780 after seeing action in the American Revolution. From the BBC:
They claim HMS Ontario is the oldest confirmed shipwreck and the only fully-intact British warship to have ever been found in the North American Great Lakes.
[...]
Official records quoted by the team of explorers show HMS Ontario went down on 31 October 1780 with a garrison of 60 British soldiers and a crew of about 40, mostly Canadians. There could also have been up to 30 American prisoners of war on board
It's the only fully intact warship of its age to be discovered in the Great Lakes, owing, say shipwreck experts, to the extreme frigidity and absence of light in its submerged port of the last two centuries. Though the Ontario has been designated a war grave, there are no plans to remove it from the water (and it's worth noting the finders are keeping quiet as to which lake it resides in, and the exact coordinates), probably because that can't be done without compromising the integrity of the wreckage. A shame, then, to have a memorial at which only a handful of trained divers -- and maybe a material-starved James Cameron -- can ever pay homage. (That there were 30 Yanks on board makes it as much an American treasure as a British one.)
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