2020 Project
The Last Schooners Project (Canada)
Ben Ioset (Texas A&M University)
The purpose of this project is to research the final years of sailing commerce on Lake Ontario through the archaeological investigation of late 19th-century sailing vessels. The eastern end of Lake Ontario contains an exceptionally well-preserved assemblage of such schooners. These vessels are a material manifestation of the efforts of sailors to continue utilizing traditional sailing technologies long after steam had supplanted sail on the Lakes. The two-masted schooner Katie Eccles and the three-masted schooner Oliver Mowat are representative of transitions in purposes, operations and technology that individual sailing ships underwent during sail’s technological decline.