__ Whig 20081201

Jonathan Moore is continuing work that started a century ago, when Kingstonians first became interested in what rests beneath the surface of Lake Ontario.

An underwater archeologist with Parks Canada, Moore, who is from Kingston, will be here next year as part of a federal government expedition to determine what ship lies out in the waters just off Kingston - a ship that the local dive community knows simply at "Guenter's wreck."

Some believe it is HMS Montreal, an War of 1812 ship.

"That's a potential identity," said Moore.

"We have no real archeological evidence that it is HMS Montreal."

The final resting place of the Montreal has never been found.

The survey next year, which will involve local volunteer divers, could answer that question, or at least identify the wreck that Parks Canada first started investigating in 2002.

Yesterday, Moore talked about the wreck and Parks Canada's plans to survey it during a talk he gave at the Marine Museum of the Great Lakes. The talk coincided with the launch of a new book on shipwrecks from the War of 1812 that Moore wrote and published with the Cataraqui Archaeological Research Foundation.

The book describes the history of the warships built in Kingston during the War of 1812 and details their underwater remains, with pictures and graphics for divers and non-divers alike.

"What we'd like to be able to do as underwater archeologists is to pull the water away," Moore said.

"Not everyone can dive and get out there."

To date, Parks Canada has been able to identify three ships in the waters off Kingston as those built during the historic war, including HMS St. Lawrence, which was the largest wooden sailing warship on the Great Lakes during the war and carried 102 guns.

She lies just offshore by the J. K. Tett Centre off of King Street.

Some ships built at the Kingston Naval Dockyards during the war were not scuttled after peace with the Americans, Moore said. It is a local myth that still perpetuates itself, he said.

The British removed anything of value from the ships and then sold them when they became a hazard in Navy Bay, which lies between Royal Military College and Fort Henry.

The first searches of the wrecks in the waters off Kingston took place in the early 1900s, Moore said. More detailed searches took place in the late 1930s, marking the first time Canadians made a concerted effort to search for underwater wrecks, Moore said.

Work the 1950s as Richard Preston used old and new techniques to identify shipwrecks and debunking myths, such as the Montreal being in Deadman's Bay, Moore said.

The survey next year, Moore said, should clarify the mystery around Guenter's wreck.

The length of Guenter's wreck makes it similar in length to three other ships that haven't been found, Moore said.

There are also no cannonballs on the wreck, he said.

"There are far too many unknowns at this stage," Moore said.

"Identification of shipwrecks is a very tricky undertaking."

Divers from Parks Canada and local volunteers will survey the wreck to photograph, measure and document the remains.

Findings will be matched against historical records of HMS Montreal and other ships to see if once and for all Guenter's wreck has a name.

Moore said volunteer divers are being organized through Preserve Our Wrecks Kingston, which can be found online at www.powkingston.org.