Save Ontario Shipwrecks

[3] SOS studies Ontario's marine heritage through historical and archival research, oral histories, side scan surveys and underwater archaeological investigations.

SOS promote an appreciation of Ontario's marine heritage through presentations to scuba training courses, public groups and dive clubs.

SOS designs, produces and brings displays about marine heritage to underwater trade shows and conferences which highlight the need for all divers to use shipwreck sites responsibly and minimize the negative impact of their visit.

More recent groups include: In 1986, the Ministry of Culture awarded SOS Core Funding grant, which developed a more structured fiscal operating system, and reorganized to manage day-to-day affairs in a more professional manner.

SOS chapter sponsored projects include plaques, surveys, buoys, underwater sculpture park and scuba diver training through the Nautical Archaeology Society (NAS).

The Rothesay (1868), a wooden side wheeler in the St. Lawrence River, west of Prescott collided with the tug Myra and sank on Sept. 12, 1889, was blown up in a munition exercise in 1901 by members of the Royal Military College of Canada and was rediscovered on Sept. 25, 1964 by the Underwater Archeology Society of Ottawa.

Benson, Henry C. Daryaw, Keystorm, Kinghorn, Lyman M Davis, Muscallonge, Robert Gaskin, Rothesay, Southern Trail, and Wexford.

In 1990, when SOS studied the Mayflower, which was lost November 12, 1912, they used grid wires to section off the ship to allow sector-by-sector photos of the wreck in Kamaniskeg Lake.

There remains the ship's stove and wheel of the Prince of Wales (1860)/ the Sligo, a three-masted barque which sank in 1918 near Toronto, Ontario, and was discovered in 1984.

Simpson (1889) /Monarch a steam powered tugboat which sank to the bottom of St. Clair River, south of the Bluewater Bridge in Sarnia, Ontario on July 6, 1934.

SOS also explored the wreck of the SS Keystorm (1909–1910), which struck Scow Island shoal in fog near Alexandria Bay, New York on October 12, 1912.

[24]“Before our mooring program, boats would drop anchor and end up pulling part of the wreck with them when they moved,” said Michael Hill, president of SOS.

Students of Thousand Islands Secondary School are creating 6 sculptures representing six people looking up at the river's surface out of concrete and rebar for the park under the supervision of art teacher Dave Sheridan.