The Jeremy Project--Searching for
The ocean offshore Alaska is littered with shipwrecks. More than 1,100 ships have wrecked off the coast of Alaska in the past 200 years. The wrecks, especially whalers from New England, contain artifacts dating from America's dominance of the whaling industry. When the stocks of sperm whales were depleted, Yankee whaler's turned to the Arctic and the bowhead whale. One of the greatest losses of whaling ships occurred in September 1871 when 32 whalers from New Bedford, Massachusetts, stayed too long off the coast of Wainwright, Alaska and were crushed in the ice. The ships were parked three to five abreast over a 20-mile stretch along the coast and were at the end of their whaling season. They carried cargos of whale oil and baleen. The baleen was used for corset stays, hairbrushes and buggy whips. The whale oil was used for lamp oil and cosmetics. The ships and the valuable cargo, valued at more that $1.6 million in 1871. were reluctantly abandoned by their captains. The loss of these ships represented a huge loss to the New Bedford shipping magnates, yet they continued to send ships to the Arctic for the next 30 years. Nevertheless, the whaling industry had peaked and future steam whalers would use improved technology and smaller crews to harvest the diminishing whale stocks in the Arctic. While the catastrophe in 1871 involved the largest number of ships caught in the ice at one time, strandings occurred in 1876, 1888, and 1897. In 1898, the U.S. Revenue Cutter Bear, fittingly a precursor to the U.S. Coast Guard, rescued the crews of eight whaling ships wrecked near Barrow, Alaska in 1897. The sea rescue, led by Capt. Tuttle from the Bear, and an overland expedition by Lt. Jarvis, was successful and the crews returned safely home. Over the ensuing years, the locations of wrecks were lost. During the following decades, pilots would report seeing ships on the bottom of the Chukchi Sea and occasionally a pilot would report seeing a wreck but no accurate locations were ever recorded.
This summer the first scientific survey of shipwrecks offshore Alaska took place. MMS Alaska Region archaeologist Michele Hope served as team archaeologist for the survey dubbed the Jeremy Project. Scientists and students from NASA, the Ames Research Center; Santa Clara University; U.S. Coast Guard; U.S. Navy; and MMS undertook a survey in the Chukchi Sea off the coast of Alaska near Barrow. Additional financial support was provided by NOAA, National Underwater Research Program and the National Park Service The team worked from August 22 - September 4, 1998 during the brief open water season, using the U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Polar Star as their scientific platform. Team members used other high tech equipment developed by NASA's Ames Research Center. ARC developed an underwater telepresence remotely operated vehicle, called TROV, that produces a three-dimensional picture of an object. The TROV produces this picture by using a stereo pair of cameras separated by the distance between your eyes. Special eye wear is used to see the picture in 3D. TROV is also able to record film footage underwater using these cameras. This footage can then be translated via software into a virtual reality computer simulation of the environment that was filmed. You can then use this computer-generated image to revisit areas recorded by the TROV. The "Jeremy Project" applied this technology which was originally developed for NASA's Mars Pathfinder Project to the field of underwater archaeology to survey for wrecks from the 19th century whaling industry. So, the Jeremy Team had plenty to look for in the Chukchi Sea. It was originally planned that the U.S. Navy would provide side scan sonar equipment and expertise to initially survey larger areas for archaeological sites. Any suspicious hits would be further investigated with the TROV. Finally, Coast Guard and Navy divers would be used to verify any shipwreck sites located with the TROV. Unfortunately, despite a valiant effort on the part of the Navy, the side scan sonar did not function properly in Arctic conditions. The reasons for the malfunction are still unclear but the team suspects that it had something to do with the power source used to operate the equipment. As luck would have it, the first shipwreck was found while testing the TROV off the side of the Polar Star in one of the high probability areas. The remainder of the two-week field season was spent investigating that site. While Navy divers were on location videotaping the first site, they discovered a second shipwreck. These sites were mapped with Global Positioning System and both sites were videotaped with the TROV and by the divers. Shipwrecks are a type of archaeological site protected by federal agencies under the National Environmental Protection Act process. The survey work accomplished on the Jeremy Project was conducted under a State of Alaska Field Archaeology Permit which was issued to Santa Clara University. To learn more about the Jeremy Project, the Polar Star and NASA's ROV as well as hear audio interviews with archaeologist Michele Hope and other project participants visit the Jeremy Project or the New Bedford Whaling Museum on the Internet.
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