Thousand-Year-Old Canoe Found at the Bottom of Pewaukee Lake

Mark Schachtner, a volunteer diver with the “4 Seasons Scuba Divers” club who was helping clear debris from the bottom of Pewaukee Lake in Wisconsin, came across a rare historical discovery.

As he was preparing to return to the surface, he noticed a long object among the shells that looked like a piece of wood. At first, he thought it was simply a wooden post or abandoned fishing equipment. A closer look, however, revealed that it was a boat with a history stretching back around a thousand years.

Schachtner immediately marked the coordinates of the discovery and contacted maritime archaeologist Tamara Thomsen of the Wisconsin Historical Society. Five days later, they returned to the lake together, measured the boat, photographed it, and collected a wood sample for analysis.

Because the inside of the boat was filled with sand and sediment, it had been protected from environmental exposure and remained well preserved. Tamara Thomsen described the survival of such an ancient wooden vessel in such good condition as a genuine historical rarity.

Experts believe the canoe dates to the Late Woodland culture and was made with considerable skill and effort. They say the inside of a thick oak trunk was likely hollowed out by hand using stone tools or strong mollusk shells, after which the wood was shaped with fire.