Maine lake full of sunken steamboats

Steamboats were once a glamorous means of transport for tourists summering at Moosehead Lake – but when the era faded, ship owners sank the once-beloved vessels.

"A hundred years ago there were dozens of these things cruising around here," said a man who'd suddenly appeared next to me at the dock as I watched the approaching steamboat. He'd startled me out of my reverie, my gaze caught somewhere between the shimmer that dances across Moosehead Lake and the seaplanes taking off toward Mount Katahdin.

I grew up in the US state of Maine at a smaller lake not far from here, and I spent many summers taking day trips to Moosehead Lake with my family. But this was the first time I boarded the historical Steamboat Katahdin, the last of a once-numerous fleet that used to ferry hordes of well-dressed elites from nearby train depots to the area's luxury resorts for their summer holidays.

Even though the lake is 310 sq km (the state's biggest), it was hard to imagine as many as 50 vessels cruising around it. "What happened to the rest of them?" I asked.

He pointed down to the murky water. Apparently, many are sitting at the bottom.

From roughly the 1830s to the 1930s, when the steamboats were in operation, this lake and surrounding woods in northern Maine were as popular for American tourists as a visit to the Hamptons or Cape Cod today. US author Henry David Thoreau was captivated by these millions of acres of forestland. In his 1864 book, The Maine Woods, he recounted standing at the top of Mount Katahdin: "I could see… boundless forests, and lakes, and streams, gleaming in the sun."

As the era's logging industry made the area more accessible, summer tourism bloomed around Moosehead Lake (which Thoreau described "like a gleaming silver platter at the end of the table"). People from major East Coast cities would swarm in for the season, reaching the remote area by taking a train or stagecoach to the village of Greenville Junction on the south shore of the lake, and then boarding one of the dozens of steamboats – also used for hauling logging equipment, mail and cattle – that would zip them to grand hotels, like the famed 500-room Mount Kineo House. One of the largest hotels in the country at the time, it boasted a bowling alley, telephone, electricity, three steam yachts and even its own baseball team.

"I don't think many people realise the extent of how much tourism the Moosehead Lake region had at the turn of the century," said Ryan Robbins, who grew up on the shores of the lake. "It was a boomtown because of its natural resources, remoteness and awe-inspiring beauty. The steamboat industry was the backbone that allowed it all to happen. At the time, the region was known country-wide and was published in sporting magazines and directories all over."

But when roads were built between major towns around the lake and logging started to dwindle, there wasn't much use for these steamboats anymore. Resorts began to close and tourism declined; the Great Depression and World War Two made things even harder.

Keyth Carter, who lives in Moosehead's most populated town of Greenville (where she was a schoolteacher for 35 years) is the granddaughter of Stillman Sawyer, a boat captain and builder of the steamboat era. Stillman's wife, Bertie, kept a detailed diary of those times. On 8 April 1935, Bertie wrote: "Stillman got word he was released from the mail contracts so no more boats. I am feeling sad about it."

"Every time I read this entry, I pause and think about the worry and stress she must have felt for their future," said Carter.

BBC