Soo Theatre & CCHS Joint Benefit – Finding the Wreck of The Russia

On September 20th at 7 PM, Great Lakes Historical Shipwreck Society Director Emeritus Tom Farnquist will present a talk about his quest to locate the final resting place of the package freighter “Russia,” which sank in northern Lake Huron during a violent storm in April, 1909. Many other shipwreck hunters had spent decades on the same quest, and Tom led a team in 2022 that finally succeeded in finding her, resting on the bottom in 220 feet of water.

The ship, bound from Alpena to Duluth loaded with bags of cement and crates of various freight items, went down during the early morning hours of April 30th. Thanks to decisive action by her Captain, John McLean, and the courage and seamanship of her crew, all three of the lifeboats launched in the heavy seas made it to shore near De Tour. They landed just before dawn, having rowed their boats about eight miles, guided by the navigational light off of Pointe De Tour.

Tom will discuss the effort to locate the wreck, and show videos made during five dives on the Russia by technical divers John Janzen of Madison, Wisconsin, John Scoles of Minneapolis, and Ken Merryman and his son Andrew, also from Minnesota, and also Dusty Kliman. (Some of the crates of freight are still visible (after 110+ years) in the videos of the wreckage on the bottom!) Tom will be taking questions after his talk. Since he has discovered the locations of about 20 shipwrecks during his very active career as a diver, he could obviously talk for a long time, but the scheduled program will run about one hour, and he is kindly presenting this as a joint benefit for the Soo Theatre and the Chippewa County Historical Society. Please share this post with all of your friends, and we hope to see many of you for this exciting presentation of Great Lakes Marine History by Sault native Tom Farnquist.