News Photo by Julie Riddle Artifacts blown from the bottom of Thunder Bay onto the shores of Bayview Park are seen on Friday.

ALPENA — Beachcombers and afternoon strollers may make an exciting discovery as this summer winds down — a piece of history, half-buried in the sand and stones of the Lake Huron shoreline.

Sightings of shipwrecks pieces and slab wood from Alpena’s lumbering days, long buried by sediment and water but now freed by the record-setting high water levels of the Great Lakes, have become common in recent weeks, according to State Maritime Archaeologist Wayne Lusardi, employed by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources at the Great Lakes Maritime Heritage Center.

Area residents have contacted Lusardi many times a week over the past two months, reporting possible shipwreck artifact sightings. The high water level and recent storms have carried pieces in from Thunder Bay and have uncovered all sorts of items long-buried in the sand near the shore, from dead fish to children’s toys to imposing pieces of wood that may be a remnant of one of the many ships that lurk at the bottom of Lake Huron.

Artifacts found on the beach, tempting as they may be to scoop up and take home as a precious trophy, come from state bottomlands and belong to the state, protected under Michigan law.

The pieces may look sturdy and heavy but are actually delicate, a sponge-like structure with many cells that hold saps and sugars when the tree is alive. If shipwreck wood is removed from the water that preserves it and is left to dry, those cells collapse, Lusardi said, and “eventually, you get a pile of woodchips.”

It’s a loss that’s a double shame, he said, because the artifact was first taken from the public and then destroyed.

Professional preservationists can keep wood intact as it dries, filling the cells with a chemical or wax, or even high concentrations of sugar or Elmer’s glue, Lusardi explained, a process that saves the artifact for many to enjoy and learn from.

Residents who find a suspected shipwreck section are encouraged to report the find to Lusardi. Photographs and measurements help him determine the origin of the find, but he encourages the finder to leave the item where it is, keeping it in its proper context for scientific study and allowing nature to preserve it.

Wood from a shipwreck will usually contain spikes or some other connecting device. Slab wood, with one flat and one convex face, is usually not from a ship. Shipwreck pieces may be found in all sizes, from small, portable chunks of wood to giant beams 40 feet long.

The beach behind Alpena’s bandshell at Bayview Park, where six known sunken ships from the early 20th century lie within a few hundred yards of shore, can be littered with hundreds of pieces of drift material brought in or dug up by the lake.

This year’s high water levels have impacted the ships that came to their final rest near the shore. In Hoeft State Park, north of Rogers City, a shipwreck Lusardi was told about some 10 years ago, once buried in the sand dunes on Hoeft’s shore, has been uncovered by the waves this summer, 45 feet of the ship’s ribs and bottom visible under shallow water and more still buried.

Further north, at 40 Mile Point Lighthouse, the Joseph S. Fay, a shipwreck that has been embedded on the beach, high and dry for the last 130 years, is now under water, the waves of Lake Huron swallowing it as they engulfed the beach up to treeline.

The summer’s high water levels have provided a window of opportunity for archaeologists, Lusardi said, allowing them to draw, photograph, measure, and study mysterious pieces of the past that usually lie hidden beneath the mysterious depths of our great lake.

“It just really shows you how dynamic the lakes are, and how powerful they are,” Lusardi said.

Lusardi told of some young people who recently found a lumbering era artifact on Starlite Beach and brought it in to him, excited about their find. Once he verifies the find and it goes through the necessary preservation treatment, a process that can take up to two years, Lusardi said, the finders will have the pleasure of visiting the Michigan Archaeological Collection in Alpena and viewing the treasure, to which their name will be permanently attached as “discoverer.”

Julie Riddle can be reached at 989-358-5693, jriddle@thealpenanews.com or on Twitter @jriddleX.

Found a shipwreck? Leave it be

High waters in Lake Huron and heavy wind have pushed parts of many shipwrecks and other artifacts from the lakebottom to shore. If you find one, leave it where it is and call state archaeologists at 989-766-3294.