Outdoor Wisconsin

plifting music) We've come back to Discovery World on Milwaukee's Lake Michigan lake front and I'm standing on the deck of a replica of the Challenge, a sailing vessel that ran aground in 1910 south of Chaboygen. In just a few minutes, we'll conclude our two part series on Lake Michigan shipwrecks with a look at two more sunken vessels. But first, Elizabeth Cramer joins a group of adventurousome women for a National Wild Turkey Federation Women in the Outdoors Program in Vernon County. I'm Dan Small and it's time, once again, for Outdoor Wisconsin. Summer to fall, winter to spring From Green Bay to where the Saint Croix sings From Catamaran to Superior Shore Outdoor Wisconsin Outdoor Wisconsin I'm in the Simple Machines Shipyard, where you can explore the six building blocks that are the basis of all complicated machines made today. And speaking of exploring, the National Wild Turkey Federation Women in the Outdoors Program offers workshops for women to explore a variety of outdoor activities in a safe, supportive environment. Elizabeth Cramer spent a day at an event in Vernon County, where she threw herself right into the fun. Today, I am in Westby, Wisconsin with a group of women that is sure to inspire you to get outside. Join me for women in the outdoors. (whoops) (mellow music) (squeals) (whoops) (laughs) Thank you. -

Patti

1997 a pilot program in Wisconsin. -

Elizabeth

Okay so, how many years have you guys been at it, 20? -

Patti

22 years. Okay. - Yep, 22nd year. -

Elizabeth

Wow and how much has the program grown since then? We originally had about 50 people at the first event and since then we've been up to 180 and this year we've got 150 here, so it's grown a lot and it's become a really popular event with everyone. It's neat to be able to see all the women. They come here, they've never done this before. It's their first time, they're so excited and they just go home with so many new experiences and new friends. We're doing new adventures every year. We do the climbing tower and the zipline. We do shooting classes and fishing, we do kayak and canoeing, so there's always something new to offer them year over year. -

Elizabeth

And I've also noticed a lot of women returning for their fourth, fifth, sixth year. What does that mean to you? It means we're doing something right. I pulled the first bow here, in this spot, last time we were at this camp. I wanna take this class again, all the pointers are important and I'm thinking of maybe graduating to bow hunting turkey, since I do that anyway with the gun. I'm here to get a refresher, 'cause I don't do it every day. -

Instructor

Look at that. I learned all about bows and archery here, about seven or eight years ago and we were at this particular camp last and I just loved it. Went home and bought a bow and joined the archery league and came back here with my daughter, so she gets a chance to shoot my bow, so it's a lot of fun. There's so many, there are about half first timers here, this weekend and that's a real fun, it's just fun to watch 'em come for the first time and just meet new people and just enjoy camps like this in the beautiful state of Wisconsin, we love it. Okay, what you have to do, is you have to build a fire. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to collect little, tiny sticks. To make that we'll use the jute as our tinder, but get a whole bunch of little tiny sticks, make a little teepee, leave a door, few more bigger sticks on top and when you're ready for that, I'll set you up with a piece of char cloth and materials to light the fire. And so you gotta have it downward, little bit of a downward angle. Okay. And you're just gonna glancing blows. (scrapes) Sometimes they hit the char cloth and they bounce right off. There you go. -

Elizabeth

So I'm here with John Cler, who is the Conservationist of the Year in Wisconsin. He just taught us how to build a fire, but he teaches so much more than that. John, how did you get involved with the Women in the Outdoors Program? I've been involved with the Turkey Federation since 1984 and when they started the Women in the Outdoors Program 27 years ago, my wife and I helped to get the first one started and since I had taught outdoor stuff in the various schools that I taught at, I kinda got roped into being one of the first instructors. Then with off and on for all 21 years. What we're building here is a debris hut. It's a survival shelter made out of all the different things that we find on the forest floor. We don't kill anything to make this shelter. Dead sticks that have fallen off the trees and leaves. And when we get a layer of leaves where we want 'em, we will put some more dead sticks over the top, so that the next windstorm doesn't take our shelter with it. Very nice shelters, I've slept in them several times. They shed water pretty well, especially if you get a good, thick layer of leaves and of course, they will shed wind and other elements as well. We have made a fire from scratch. Can you kind of tell us what it was like for you today? -

Woman

Challenging. -

Elizabeth

What part was challenging? -

Woman

Getting the fire, that was probably the most challenging. And the stone, yeah. - Gettin' the sparks-- to hit the right-- - Yeah spot to ignite. And you still have to have the right materials to do that. - Yeah. -

Woman

But even with those right materials, it still was a bit of a challenge. -

Woman

I woulda never tried this if I didn't come here, because this is a comfortable surrounding, so. Right. - Even if I failed-- It's okay. - It would've been okay with that. - Exactly. And it's okay to fail-- - Because-- -

Woman

And then we all work together to-- -

Woman

Yeah, that's one of the great things about this weekend, that you can work together with complete strangers and have a great time doing it and accomplish something wonderful. -

Woman

And you really bond. -

Woman

Any time you learn anything new, it makes you more competent in life. Yeah. - Oh yeah. Yeah, overall. - In general. -

Woman

You could take John's class every year and you'd learn something-- - Yeah sure, I'm sure. -

Woman

new every time. -

Elizabeth

So, to come out here and teach women things like the survival hike, what has that taught you? It's taught me that no matter where you come from or who you are, survival skills are fun and as a former science teacher, it's science, you know, fire's science and survival of the different foods you can eat and the ones you can't because of the chemicals that are present. We talked earlier about the cattail being one of the big four. The big four are the four things you can always eat. Oaks, pines, cattails and grasses. Those are always edible. This plant is called the jewel weed, or touch me not. This is the cure for poison ivy, the inside, that liquid in there can be rubbed on poison ivy and will take the itch away. It's all fun and it's all enjoyable and I just love seeing students of any age and any sex learning stuff. (muffled speaking) Spotter ready. On belay? -

Instructor

Belay is on. Climbing. -

Instructor

Climb on. -

Abi

It just promotes bringing women together and just teaching them new things so they can share them with their families and their friends, like how to hunt and how to catch fish and everything like that, 'cause not everybody grows up in a family that does it. -

Elizabeth

And of course, you're here with your mom, so what has this done for your relationship. Now no startin' early. -

Abi

Well I think it's helped a lot, just because we've always been really close. All right, climbing? -

Instructor

Climb on. -

Abi

Kinda like two peas in a pod, but, (Patti laughs) we kind of read each others minds now that we've worked with this for so long and it's just been really good. -

Elizabeth

Patti, what do you think? I totally agree. (Elizabeth laughs) We do have a great relationship, but, she has matured so much since she started coming here. And she's always been my helper, I mean, no matter whether it be at home or working with Women in the Outdoors. -

Elizabeth

Where have you seen her grow the most since, you know, seven years ago? Confidence. She has confidence, she's not afraid to say what's on her mind, in positive ways. -

Elizabeth

How did that make you feel, mom, watching her? Proud, very, very proud, she's an amazing young lady, she really is and she's got a (laughs) awesome future ahead of her. Don't make me cry. (Patti laughs) (Elizabeth laughs) -

Instructor

Two, one, go. (women whoops) -

Abi

I love everything that this group promotes and is about and just the message a Woman in the Outdoors is something that I want to just continue to just carry on as long as I can. We'll tell you how to learn more about Women in the Outdoors Programs later in the show. Right now, I'm in the Great Lakes Ships History exhibit, where you can learn what happened to the Christmas tree ship, the Rouse Simmons and some other ships that sailed the Great Lakes. Last week, we brought you part one of a two part series on Wisconsin's maritime history and Lake Michigan shipwrecks. Let's head back underwater now for the conclusion of the series, as we explore two more Wrecks and learn what's being done to preserve them. That's about the age-- - You hold it. -

Sailor

I was about there. 18, 19, somthin' like that. For years I was the youngest guy on a lot of the rigs we worked on. -

Interviewer

When the shipwreck was happening were you scared? Yeah, oh of course. I thought, this is not right. You don't go out and go to work and expect to drowned. The dredge had no business being out there, as far as I'm concerned, but, who was I? I was just a young guy. (low music) (water laps) Dredge No.6. It was built by Manitowac Shipbuilding and it was built to dredge. It was a pretty flat hulled vessel. It had a big scoop on it. It was built for a company in Chicago, Fitzsimon and Connell. And it was used, essentially, to dredge channels. In 1956, the Old Creek power plant was just being built by Wisconsin Electric and they were in the process of building four different units for that power plant. And what they wanted to do, was deliver the coal by water, with full vessels, full Great Lakes vessels, but the channel at the dock and there was a turnaround area, wasn't deep enough allow those vessels to be filled will coal. So the dredge's job, was hired to do, was to dredge the channel at the Wisconsin Electric plant in Old Creek, deep enough to allow a full vessel of coal to deliver coal. So it was May 23rd of 1956 and they were working late, but the wind started kicking up. All of a sudden, it just turned around, boom. And cuts come right outta the north-east, which is the worst on Michigan. And at two o'clock in the morning, this thing decides to turn over. A guy cable that holds a bucket broke and the bucket swung all the way over and that's about 30 tons being shifted to one side. Fireman told me, he said, Jerry, get the hell outta here, its time to go. So we jumped into the water. Finally come up and I turned and look and the bottom of that dredge is right there, goin' over. And it rolled right over and went down. -

Peter

The crew of 19 had no opportunity to launch their lifeboat and 9 of the 19 perished as a result. 9 were killed, 10 were saved and 2 were never found, til this day, they've never found 'em. Was one of the oilers and a second cook. When I got back to Chicago, I went to a couple of wakes of some of the guys that, - Oh yes. And the one wife said, why the hell wasn't it you and not my husband? And I went, whoa (laughs). That was sad, how do you answer that back, you know? But I always say, we're sorry, you know, it's just one of those things. Sorry for your loss. (soft music) I started diving because I had this, I just wanted to know what was on the bottom where I couldn't see the bottom. I'd walk out on my grandfather's pier as a little kid and I'd look through the waters and could see the ripples in the sand. And you wondered, what's over here, where it's six feet deep and I can't see the bottom? I image shipwrecks and I make it so that everybody else who doesn't get to dive on them gets to see what they look like. So sometimes I paint them, sometimes I draw 'em. A lot of times, it's digitally on the computer. (camera clicks) Car ferry's a pretty great wreck to dive from a dive standpoint. It's got such a great history. (birds cry) No one knew where the Car Ferry Milwaukee was, it disappeared in October of 1929. It headed out, it got three miles out of port and it headed north into 40, 50 mile an hour winds and was never seen again. We went and we were looking specifically at archeological evidence on the bottom, so that we could answer that very question of how the ship went down. Many people do feel that when you mention the name car ferry, that it was designed to transport automobiles across, but these particular vessels were designed to be able to roll sets of rail cars aboard and transport them across. They were owned by the individual railroad companies and what we discovered was that the rail cars had broken loose. There were a number of rail cars that were off the tracks, that were sideways within the hull. So when those cars loosened and started riding around within the hull in the waves, one broke through the side of the hull, pushing it out and that eventually led to the sinking of the ship, so much water water came in. It's like a war zone. It's just a big, on the outside it's starting to cave in on itself and stuff like that and you see torn apart rail cars and you see torn apart metal and sheet metal and then the bow is starting to separate from the rest of the ship and then a ways off of the bow section, is the pilot house, which is still standing at the bottom. You can still see the words Milwaukee written on it. -

Tamara

There's always this conflict as to how many people were lost and because there were no survivors, there was no one to interview really, to be able to address how many people were actually aboard and really because some people didn't report because they didn't feel that the ship was actually gonna go out that day. So, there's really no way of telling exactly how many people were lost. But we know that it was a quite substantial disaster in Wisconsin history. -

Cal

One of the few visible signs of the tragedy, was a life boat in addition to some bodies and one of the life boats was found with four of the sailors, with their life jackets on. So, its tell you that they were able to get to a life boat, but that the conditions were so rough, that they just were unable to survive. -

Tamara

Amongst the debris, in the life boat, was a message case and inside the message case was a note, sort of a note in a bottle, these message cases were standard issue to vessels of the time and that indicated the exact time of loss of the ship, because the note was written and on the note it said, you know, this is in the hand of the purser. It was substantiated that it was on the letterhead of the Grand Trunk line and so it was authenticated. -

Cal

It's always sad when not a soul makes it off a shipwreck and that adds somethin' to the experience of diving it. (camera clicks) You know, we don't have pretty fish and we don't have reefs, we have shipwrecks and there's no place in the world that's got more, better preserved historic wrecks than the Great Lakes. (mellow music) These are some pictures of captain Ed, as he was know in the family. Edward was a captain and he spent 45 years as a car ferry captain on the Great Lakes. This was from the Milwaukee Journal in 1938, talking about my great-grandfather, Edward E. Martin. The Milwaukee was purchased by the Grand Trunk in 1908 and captain Martin came to service as a wheelman. He became second mate in 1909 and first mate in 1912 and in 1920, he succeeded the late captain Thomas Trail as master of the Grand Haven. Mainly, you know, he had been serving on the Milwaukee for a number of number of years and in 1927 he got a commissioned to be on the Madison and I'm just convinced that if he hadn't received that commission, which was his first captainship, that he would have been on the Milwaukee and would've gone done with the Milwaukee and I probably wouldn't be sitting here talking to you if that was the case. (door squeaks) (boat horn blares) (engine whirs) (paper crinkles) -

Man

Where are we goin' to? -

Russell

The wreck. Let's see. 3.3 nautical miles. Course is, jump over that crease on the chart there. Columbus had the same problem. 091.5. Now, we are just outside of the main gap. This is the main gap between the Milwaukee Harbor and Lake Michigan. Our goal is the Prins Willem, which is about 3 nautical miles off shore. And we'll be sampling every mile on the way out. So the set he gave us, what, 10.5? No, 9. - 9.4, all right. Think it's 9.5. And the other side? Other side's 6.7. 6.7. So the quagga mussels started invading in Lake Michigan around 2003 in a substantial rate. And when you see the shipwreck, you will also have noticing that inbetween the mussels, now you can have algae, so the algae are going to be also attaching to there and what happens is as you have organic matter now depositing into your shipwreck, it starts degrading it as well. So, very slowly, but you start changing the characteristics of the surfaces. Three, two, one, sample! 12, 10, 50, number 10. Now we're going to deploy a remotely operated vehicle, or ROV, that we will use to collect samples from the bottom. We'll also use it to survey the shipwreck and see what kinds of changes have occurred since last time we were here. Here we are, looking at the edge of the Prins Willem and we're near a railing and you can see that the surfaces are largely encrusted with a growth, which is mostly mussels. There are several ways in which the animals alter the shipwrecks and in the case of a shipwreck, any alteration is permanent. Stressed by currents for example, during a storm and pulled off, they will pull a small piece of wood along with them. Most of the shipwrecks in Lake Michigan are completely covered with quagga mussels and that is really causing the breakdown of the shipwrecks, it's become accelerated. Really, our understanding of those ship also develops overtime as new technology becomes available to us. We try to use that to really understand how these ships are, to monitor their status and then to protect them for future generations to come visit and enjoy. (peaceful music) I kinda watch the weather. I'm very conscious of weather. And I'll notice somethin' and I'll say, uh, storm comin' up. Gonna get tough on the Great Lakes. Then I think about them seamen. There's nothing there that we could find anymore. It would have to be buried or gone by now. But you still have that respect and you still have to be careful. Our job really is to remember those victims, the people that really dedicated their lives. This was the place that they worked, this was the place that they lived and in many cases, it was the place that they lost their lives and so remembering them and being able to tell their stories is very important. There's been just this a lot of attention back to Lake Michigan and I think what that makes us do is to try to look back on the past and be able to look and see why Milwaukee was built. I think it's really important to understand how Milwaukee, became, from the Milwaukee perspective, how we were so dependent on water to begin with. Today, we're very recreation-focused. We have a beautiful waterfront for that. But as the Denis Sullivan, for example, sailing out of Discovery, well, with a three-masted schooner, tries to remind us, those masts, those sails, were common. I mean, they were the way people first came here, how goods first got here and water is transportation, I think it's a timeless concept. We'll wrap up this weeks show here at the wave tank, which simulates the wave action on the Great Lakes. To learn more about Discovery World and this week's other features, log onto milwaukeepbs.org and search local programs for Outdoor Wisconsin or visit the Milwaukee PBS Facebook page. I'll be at the Wisconsin Fishing Expo, February 28th through March 1st at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison, so stop by our booth and say hello. Well, next time, we'll learn about a tunnel that helps turtles and other critters safely cross a busy highway. Let's go girls. - Elizabeth Kramer checks out Wild West Days in Viroqua and I'll join the Voss family for a fishing outing on a pond in Fon du Lac County. Waving goodbye from the wave tank here at Discovery World, I'm Dan Small. Join us again next week for Outdoor Wisconsin (positive music)