OSWEGO – The H. Lee White Maritime Museum welcomes noted underwater explorer Jim Kennard to present “Shipwrecks of Lake Ontario: A Journey of Discovery” at 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, May 4 at the museum located at 1 W. First Street Pier in Oswego. Admission is free.
The presentation is a personal and historic exploration of some of the most important shipwrecks discovered in Lake Ontario by Kennard’s team and shipwreck peers as he takes the audience on a 50-year journey of shipwreck exploration from the pages of his book, “Lake Ontario Shipwrecks: A Journey of Discovery.”
Their finds include the two oldest shipwrecks discovered in the Great Lakes: the 1790 British warship HMS Ontario and the sloop Washington, which was lost in 1803. The presentation also features underwater images and video of these lost treasures.
This, and his other ground-breaking book, “Legend of the Lake: Discover Edition,” will both be available for purchase as part of the program.
Kennard has been diving and exploring the lakes of the northeast since 1970. He discovered more than 200 shipwrecks in the Great Lakes, Lake Champlain, the Finger Lakes and in the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. Using his background as an electrical engineer, he built a side scan sonar system that located many of these shipwrecks.
His discoveries have received world-wide media attention, and Kennard and his team have appeared in many publications including “National Geographic,” “Sea Technology,” “Inland Seas,” “Wreck Diving” and several others. He’s appeared on the Discovery Channel, CBC, BBC, Fox News and in National Geographic’s “Drain the Oceans” series on the American Revolution.
In 2013, Kennard was selected as a fellow member of The Explorers Club. In 2015, he received the Joyce S. Hayward Award for historic interpretation from the Association for Great Lakes Maritime History for documenting the stories of Great Lakes shipwreck discoveries on his website at https://www.shipwreckworld.com/.
In addition to searching for elusive shipwrecks, Kennard is an avid hiker and amateur radio operator. He graduated from Clarkson University with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering in 1966. A native of Peekskill, he currently resides in Fairport, N.Y.
Seating for “Shipwrecks of Lake Ontario: A Journey of Discovery” is limited. Those interested in attending should call the H. Lee White Maritime Museum at 315-342-0480 or email [email protected] to reserve a seat.
The H. Lee White Maritime Museum’s History Lecture Series is a free program open to the public. The museum and Treasure Chest Gift Shop are open daily from 1 to 5 p.m. For more information on this event or other programs, call the museum at 315-342-0480 or go to https://hlwmm.org/.
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