'Sophie’s wreck' captures Duluth's attention
The odd conditions of Duluth’s weird winter of 2006-2007 — a season marked early on by unseasonal warmth and little snow — conspired to create an exceptionally smooth and clear sheet of ice just off the city’s beaches. As a result, throngs of skaters, anglers, walkers and sightseers flocked for several days to the beaches and onto ice to peer through it to the lake bottom, clearly visible several feet below the frozen surface.
This photo, courtesy of the Great Lakes Shipwreck reservation Society, shows the propeller and sternpost of “Sophie’s Wreck,” off Duluth’s Minnesota Point, in the shallow waters of Lake Superior.

One of those taking advantage of the extraordinary conditions was a girl named Sophie. On February 18, 2007, while she was skating on the clear ice with her dad, John Williams, near Minnesota Point in Duluth, Sophie spotted through the ice what appeared to be a small portion of a shipwreck. Her dad and neighbor Steve Sola drilled a small hole in the ice to insert a drop camera and view the wreck. 

The little girl’s exciting discovery was reported in the Duluth paper and broadcast on TV stations in Duluth and Minneapolis. The shipwreck, located in Lake Superior about 150 yards from shore, south of the Lift Bridge, was named after the little girl as the SS Sophie, or Sophie’s Wreck, since its real identity was unknown.

Jay Hanson, a member of the Great Lakes Shipwreck Preservation Society (GLSPS) Duluth Chapter, and a group of divers checked out the shipwreck on February 23. From its location, it was originally thought that the wreck might be the 81-foot tug Inman. Junked in 1916, the tugboat was being burned and broke away during the process, sinking to the sandy bottom off Minnesota Point. In 1986 some large pieces of wreckage that came up near the south pier of the Duluth Ship Canal were noted as being from the Inman.

The GLSPS conducted an ice dive on the shipwreck on Sophie’s Wreck on February 24 to document the details and help determine its identity. Sophie and her father went out on the ice with friends to observe the work on the exciting discovery. 

Measurements obtained from the shipwreck may rule the 80-foot Inman out, as they don’t seem to line up with the larger dimensions and proportions of a tug that size. 

GLSPS member Hanson volunteered other vessels he found through research to consider as the identify of Sophie’s find, such as the 75-foot tug Sara Smith that burned at anchor off Minnesota Point in 1908. Hanson also found information on the Amethyst, a 45-foot tug that was lost in 1888. The measured size of Sophie’s Wreck suggests it may possibly be from the Amethyst.  Additional research and a possible visit to the wreck site in warmer weather will be done. A final note: Shortly after Sophie’s discovery, Duluth-Superior welcomed the return of what the locals call “real winter,” which included a good old-fashioned blizzard. During that storm, in the course of only a few hours, the howling winds broke up the once-clear ice off Duluth’s beaches and tossed the pieces into huge, stunning windrows that lined the lake’s edge. Sophie’s window onto the bottom of Lake Superior was no more, and her wreck retreated to the privacy of its sandy home.

 

Thanks to the GLSPS for much of the information this story. For a full report:

http://www.glsps.org/DuluthWreck/documenting_sophie.htm