On a warm July evening, Matt Olson wasn’t on the water, but at his computer. As the owner of Door County Adventure Rafting, he often browsed satellite images of Lake Michigan to scout new spots for tours. That night, while clicking around the shallow waters of Rowleys Bay in Door County, he noticed a shadowy outline on his screen—long, narrow, and out of place.
What Matt was not aware of is that he was looking at the shadow of a ghost ship. As soon as he clicks on the Slips, a ghost ship from the literature of 1887 of Wisconsin comes to the screen of his computer. Wondering what that is, Olson remarked the shape of the ship which is the Barnacle ship.
That’s what brought the Wisconsin of Historical Society to this place. Maritime archaeologist Tamara Thomsen and her team dove into old records, insurance documents, and newspaper clippings, piecing together the mystery. It didn’t take long to confirm: Olson had found the Frank D. Barker, a 137-foot canaller built by Simon G. Johnson way back in 1867.
A working ship with a tough ending
As a canaller, it was engineered to fit into the narrow locks of the Welland Canal and was used to transport grain out of Milwaukee and Chicago and transport coal back from the East. In the 1800s, it was one of hundreds of ships that provided steady service to midwestern towns. But in September 1887, the Barker’s story took a dark turn.
While sailing from Manistee to Escanaba in order to load iron ore, the ship ran into heavy fog and rough weather. Slipping off course, it collided with the rocky shallows of Spider Island. Over the course of the following year, 5 separate attempts at salvage were made. All were unsuccessful.
The Barker was fully surrendered to the lake by late 1888. $8,000 was estimated to be the total worth of the loss. 138 years later, that would translate to more than $250,000, a substantial amount today.
The wreck under the waves
The reason wrecks are made on the underwater surfaces of lakes, is still puzzling for many people. What Olson saw on the ship wreck screen was a still slice of history frozen in time. He was oblivious to how well preserved it was. The bottom of the wreck is more than 138 years old, and is still preserved while the sides, though, have split open, spreading across the lakebed like the pages of a weathered book.
For Tamara Thomsen, the Barker, it is more than just another shipwreck. It is part of a history lessons and recollection of the Great Lakes. “What’s amazing about the Barker,” explained Thomsen, “is that the entire ship is still there. It is spread out like a puzzle that is waiting to be solved.”
Matt Olson and his amazing discovery
For Olson, though, the Barker is more than just history—it’s a memory he’ll never forget. After contacting the State Historic Preservation Office, he returned to the site, this time with his 6-year-old son.
“We were among the first to see the Frank D. Barker over 130 years, and to think his very first snorkeling experience was on a shipwreck,“ Olson said, “is beyond amazing.”
Sometimes, life beneath the ocean is a history that has not yet been explored. For Olson, and all the hard work of the great experts like Thomsen, the Frank D Barker was no longer a ship lost on the surface of the tiles, it’s now and amazing souvenir of the past, there to explore.
This is a story that families can see, dive into, and share – a sliver of the past of Lake Michigan, recollected into the present.