Seaway Trail
Fact Sheets
Trail ProfileLesson Plans
For A Complete Listing of Seaway Trail Lesson Plans click here.
Newsletter
To View The Most Recent Newsletter, the "Seaway Trail Blazer" click here.
Seaway Trail Photo Bank CD
Storywriters and journalists, to receive a copy of a high resolution CD, please email info@seawaytrail.com
Press Room
Current News Releases
PRESS RELEASE: June 1, 2006
Contacts: Teresa Mitchell, Seaway Trail, Inc., 315-646-1000
David White, NY Sea Grant, 315-312-3042
Phil Church, Underwater Consulting and Photography, 315-343-2062
Dive the Seaway Trail: Underwater Travel Destinations on America's Byway
Scuba divers represent an economic impact of more than $108 million to New York's Great Lakes region. The fresh waters of the St. Lawrence River, Lake Ontario, Niagara River and Lake Erie are filled with shipwrecks, "sealife," and rock formations decorated with freshwater sponge. This largely undiscovered underwater destination is being brought to divers' attention by "Dive the Seaway Trail," a project of New York Sea Grant and Seaway Trail, Inc. The project includes development of a series of dive sites that are marked, buoyed and maintained by community-based stewards along the St. Lawrence River, Lake Ontario, Niagara River and Lake Erie. The sites, featured on a new website, are accessed via the Seaway Trail, one of America's Byways and a National Recreation Trail.
"We are pleased to be bringing New York's freshwater resources to the attention of divers looking for exciting new experiences," says Seaway Trail, Inc. Executive Director Teresa Mitchell, Sackets Harbor, NY. "In return, the divers will positively impact the region's economy.
A 1999 New York Sea Grant survey showed divers living within the Great Lakes region spent $61 million a year on boat and auto fuel, lodging and food, etc. and $47 million on diving-related expenditures.
"An officially designated Seaway Trail Diving Trail and its fascinating collection of underwater resources can be marketed to divers from outside the region and increase attention to this freshwater destination for recreational diving," says David White, recreation/tourism specialist with New York Sea Grant, Oswego, NY.
"Water clarity has enhanced the visibility of some of the Northeast's finest diving sites. The diving experience here ranges from weather-related wrecks and intentionally-sunk vessels to natural formations and cultural treasures of great significance to the maritime heritage of the region. The cool fresh water has preserved centuries-old ships and artifacts that would have long since been destroyed by warm salt waters," says Phil Church, diver and consultant to the project.
Along with shipwrecks, Seaway Trail waters host a surprising variety of wildlife and freshwater sponge.
The first destinations profiled on the Dive the Seaway Trail website at www.seawaytrail.com
are the beginner-level David W. Mills, Lake Ontario's first New York State Submerged Cultural Preserve, near Oswego, and the Eagle Wings natural features dive site in the 1000 Islands near Clayton. Three additional sites will include an advanced deep historic dive site, a shore-access dive site, and an intermediate site.
The Oswego Maritime Foundation's management of the David W. Mills and Save the River's stewardship of the Eagle Wings site set the project's site stewardship model. New York Sea Grant and Seaway Trail, Inc. are assisting stewards by providing funding for the development of promotional and interpretive materials for the first five sites. Additional site stewards will be sought as the series expands.
The 518-mile Seaway Trail is a federally-designated America's Byway (Federal Highway Administration designation) and a National Recreation Trail (National Parks Service designation). To learn more about diving the Seaway Trail, visit
www.seawaytrail.com . # # #
Sidebar Story Suggestion:
The underwater collection of the Seaway Trail waters of the St. Lawrence River, Lake Ontario, Niagara River and Lake Erie includes shipwrecks spanning two and a half centuries with dives for all levels of experience. Charter boat and diving guide services help divers reach the wrecks. Visibility in some locations allows viewing of 40 feet at a depth of 110 feet. A sampling of wreck sites includes:
Wolfe Islander II, a massive car ferry built in 1946 and intentionally sunk in the St. Lawrence River off Wolfe Island near Cape Vincent, NY. Doors and hatches are welded open for interior exploration.
Lake Ontario holds some 1,500 ships and several aircraft. A wing section of the B-24 bomber
"Getaway Gertie" was recovered from the Lake. Not far from the
David W. Mills steambarge, the first Dive the Seaway Trail site and Lake Ontario's first New York State Submerged Cultural Preserve, is the wreck of the tugboat
Mary Kay. Pultneyville's waters are home to the 135-foot, three-masted schooner
St. Peter, said to be haunted - advanced divers only please. The Sodus Bay Lighthouse Museum - one of
28 historic lighthouses on the Seaway Trail - shares the tales of ships and shipwrecks.
The Niagara River is a drift diving attraction. Divers can leisurely ride the River's gentle currents - rarely more than 8 mph - to look for aquatic life and items that intentionally or accidentally went overboard. Phil Church has written about a diver that found three full moneybags - loot from a store heist - and returned them to the store.
Lake Erie holds its own extraordinary collection of submerged wooden ships and will add a site to the Dive the Seaway Trail series.
