Sunken Steamboats of Moosehead Lake
Online Mar 17, 2019
When: Thursday April 4th, 7:30pm
Where: Palmer Cove Yacht Club, Salem MA
The North Shore Frogmen will be hosting a presentation by Ryan Robbins on the documentary film project, “Sunken Steamboats of Moosehead Lake”. This film project is currently in production, under the guidance of Director Ryan Robbins, in partnership with the Moosehead Marine Museum and Moosehead Lake Divers, with the support of the Moosehead Historical Society.
We look forward to Ryan visiting our club to give this presentation and invite Froggies, friends, and guests to join us.
The Director
Ryan grew up on the shores of Moosehead Lake, and witnessed the restoration of the steamship Katahdin. His curiosity was seeded when he was invited aboard to watch the work being done and hearing stories of the old steamships, the great Mount Kineo resort, and the realization that this remote area was once the edge of civilization where the wealthy and sometimes famous came to play. After moving away to go to school and start a career, Ryan was able to take up SCUBA diving with the primary goal of fulfilling his childhood dream of seeing what the lake was hiding underwater. Upon surfacing from his very first Moosehead Lake dive on the Kineo steamer remain and feeling like Jacques Cousteau of the great north woods, he realized he wanted to use his skills to share with others the excitement of seeing what lies below. As he puts it, “real history you can see and touch exists on the bottom of Moosehead Lake.”
The Story
To think you could take a train from Boston, New York, or other big cities beyond and be dropped off in the middle of the wilderness, several hundred miles from anywhere…right at the water’s edge of Moosehead Lake, then take a steamboat to a grand 600-guest resort hotel in the midst of the Maine woods. In 1900 you could do this. Thousands of people escaped from the hustle, bustle, and heat of the cities to the wilderness of the Moosehead Lake Region – for the same reasons they do today. Now imagine over 25 steamboats cruising Moosehead Lake ferrying tourists, sportsmen, businessmen, and cargo, or even towing logs. What happened to all of them? While we can’t go back in time, we can visit the underwater remains of the steamboats, show their history, and tell the stories of those whose lives were impacted. By combining highdefinition underwater video, interviews, and historic images, this historical documentary tells the real-life tale of three sunken steamboats and what happened to them, while also providing an overview of steam-boating history on Moosehead Lake.
The Project
We hope you can join us on April 4th for this presentation. You can also find out more about this project and how you can support its production, at http://mooseheadsteamboats.com/.