Write a commentJoin Lake Ontario’s most successful shipwreck hunter, Jim Kennard, for his presentation, “Shipwrecks of Lake Ontario: a Journey of Discovery.”
The talk begins at 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 20 at the H. Lee White Maritime Museum, 1 W. First St. Pier, Oswego.
Part of the museum’s history lecture series, Kennard’s presentation is a personal and historic exploration of some of the most important shipwrecks discovered in Lake Ontario by his team and shipwreck peers.
He will take the audience on 50-year journey of shipwreck exploration from the pages of his book, “Lake Ontario Shipwrecks: A Journey of Discovery.” They include the two oldest shipwrecks discovered in the Great Lakes, the 1790 British warship “HMS Ontario” and the sloop “Washington,” which was lost in 1803. The presentation also features underwater images and video of these lost treasures. His groundbreaking book, published by the National Museum of the Great Lakes, will be available for purchase as part of the program.
Kennard has been diving and exploring the lakes of the northeast since 1970. He’s discovered more than 200 shipwrecks in the Great Lakes, Lake Champlain, Finger Lakes, and in the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. Using his background as an electrical engineer, he built a side scan sonar system that located many of these shipwrecks. His discoveries have received worldwide media attention, and Jim and his team have appeared in many publications including “National Geographic,” “Sea Technology,” “Inland Seas,” “Wreck Diving” and several others. He’s appeared on the Discovery Channel, CBC, BBC, Fox News and in National Geographic’s “Drain the Oceans” series on the American Revolution.
In 2013, Kennard was selected as a fellow member of The Explorers Club. In 2015, he received the Joyce S. Hayward Award for historic interpretation from the Association for Great Lakes Maritime History for documenting the stories of Great Lakes shipwreck discoveries on his website (https://www.shipwreckworld.com/). In addition to searching for elusive shipwrecks, Kennard is an avid hiker and amateur radio operator. He graduated from Clarkson University with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering in 1966. A native of Peekskill, he currently resides in Fairport, N.Y.
The H. Lee White Maritime Museum’s History Lecture Series is a free program open to the public. The museum and Treasure Chest Gift Shop are open daily from 1 to 5 p.m. For more information on this event or other programs, call the museum at 315-342-0480 or go to https://hlwmm.org/.
