Maritime Mysteries of the Flathead - Wins and losses: The challenges of surveying beneath Flathead Lake

Jeremy and Kyren discuss the unique challenges facing the Flathead Marine Archaeology Project as crews survey underwater sites at Woods Bay, Painted Rocks and the Kee-O-Mee.

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0:03 - [Music]

0:16 - Hello everyone, I'm Jeremy Weber, and this is Maritime Mysteries of the Flathead. I am once again joined by Flathead Marine Archaeology Project leader Kyron Zimmerman, and we are delighted to have you with us today as we once again dive into the history and mystery of what lies below Flathead Lake and the waters of Northwest Montana.

0:36 - How are you doing, Kai? I'm doing great, thanks for having me. Awesome! Since our last podcast, the project team has been hard at work on a couple of new sites, including more work in Woods Bay, Painted Rocks, and a trip back to the Kiyomi. We are still combing through the results from those surveys in preparation for detailed shows on our findings in the near future. Today, we're going to talk about some of the challenges we have faced during these surveys. One thing that we have learned for sure is that Flathead Lake does not give up its mysteries easily.

1:04 - Yeah, that's the truth, buddy. Undertaking such a comprehensive survey like we're doing now, there are a lot of unforeseen challenges, right? We really have to factor in the weather. You know, wind could blow the boat around. We've had a lot of issues with maintaining and holding anchorage. Just general visibility, you know, we've got big spring runoff that's still kind of causing a lot of sediment stirring up in the lake, so that makes things a little bit of a challenge if we're doing visual surveys. Dialing down the equipment, you know, we do have that new side-scan sonar that we're employing this year. That's been amazing for helping us pin down potential targets that are under the water, but making sure that our readings are effective and we're getting the most out of the data that we collect.

1:49 - So let's talk about Woods Bay. What's been going on out there? Woods Bay, back in May, was our first survey, and we were targeting, trying to track down some boats that were supposedly sunk in the area. A lot of locals around Woods Bay were coming up with these amazing stories and potential targets for us to go and investigate. Our first survey was back in May. Water visibility was pretty good. Our side-scan picked up several potential targets, and that's kind of one of the things about using side-scan. It takes a bit of an art to be able to interpret the returns or the images that you're getting back off this.

2:30 - Off that unit, so we've got lots of really suspicious-looking targets. However, diving on those, they turned out to be very conveniently, uh, suspiciously stacks of logs. So there's a lot of logs, and if you get a series of them stacked together, the image return on the sonar does look very much like a boat. So, you gotta use visual observation methods like deploying divers or the ROV to go ahead and verify those targets.

2:57 - Basically, when you're running a side-scan sonar unit, this is kind of a newer piece of equipment that we're still really dialing in or fine-tuning the survey method with. You have a large torpedo-shaped sensor, it's about two and a half to three feet long, and it's towed behind the boat. So, depending on how fast you're going, the sonar could rise up in the water column or sink if you slow down. Your goal is to maintain a constant speed and also a constant distance above the bottom of the lake so that you can get a really consistent read every single time.

3:48 - Now, the sonar, as you're pulling it behind the boat, it can be anywhere from 70 to 100 feet behind the boat depending on our speed. So when we're towing it behind us, we have to factor in the distance behind the boat. But also, the side-scan sonar can scan about 400 feet on either side of the unit itself. So as we're piloting the boat, we're getting an image return, and we're using a GPS reference here on the boat. But in actuality, it could be 100 feet behind us and potentially 400 feet on either side, left or right. It's a huge area. So just because we get an image return on our screen, it's still a pretty big spot behind us.

4:19 - Typically, what we do is when we do come across a target that's worth investigating, we'll mark a waypoint as soon as we see it. We'll finish a transect, come over about 200 feet if we're scanning 400 feet. We'll do a 200-foot transect so we can get a good level of coverage on either side. And when we come back over that scan again, we'll mark another waypoint. So now we have two waypoints that we can reference. Then, after that, we'll do a 90-degree search pattern. So if we were going north to west, we have two waypoints on the north and the south side transect. If we do a north to south, we come over and we do a south to north. We do a 90-degree cut. So then we'll go east to west and then west to east. If we cross over that same area going west to east, we'll have an additional two more waypoints that we can cross-reference. And if the sonar is angled properly, we can actually draw a line between those four waypoints, and we'll have a perfect X in our... 

5:15 - The target should be right in the middle of the X. So for all you treasure hunters out there, "X marks the spot" is actually a term that was coined with sonar. Sonar technicians were using that to reference the targets. Yeah, I just learned that a couple of weeks ago talking with a sonar tech who's been helping me out. There you go, the things that you can learn on this show.

5:37 - Reading side-scan sonar really has a lot of skill and it's an art form in and of itself. If you guys aren't familiar with how sonar works, basically it sends out an acoustic wave, similar to if you were in a dark room and you have a flashlight beam. The flashlight will send out the light, it'll reflect off of a chair or whatever, and you'll see the chair, but you're also reading the shadow that it casts behind the object. So when you're under the water, you're trying to interpret, "Okay, here's a really bright return, so it's like the sound waves reflecting back, but then it also casts a shadow behind the object." So you're kind of like, "Okay, that looks like a structure, looks like it might have towers on it. It has a really well-defined shadow behind it." So that's how we try our best to determine, "Okay, this is just a stack of rocks because it's a very irregular return. You can see the shadow pretty easily." But yeah, when it comes to logs, if they're stacked up just right and you're looking at it from basically a silhouette, it could be very tough to determine, "Is this a target of interest or is this a pretty cool stack of logs?" which we've definitely come across.

6:58 - That does not sound easy. It's a process for sure, but we do have a pretty amazing team that we're working with. We did have a very convincing return or image on our side-scan, so we're going to make another attempt to go dive on that to verify the age and the state of that boat. We also have a couple of other local divers who know of another boat in the area. It was actually just outside of our targeted survey area, so, you know, you can have a search area the size of the whole lake, and you're still going to find something that's just outside your survey area. It's a huge lake, and we can't cover it all in a single dive, so we've got to break it down.

7:49 - Breaking it up into small little pieces, if there's something just beyond our camera view, you have no idea where it is. So, let's go over to Painted Rocks. Painted Rocks is a very significant archaeological site on the southwest corner of Flathead Lake, just north of Rollins. It's this really unique exposed cliff face where the Salish and Kootenai tribes had painted these portraits or paintings on the rock face. There have been a lot of surveys done above the rocks, but there has never been a comprehensive survey of anything that could be underneath the water.

8:56 - We haven't had the technology or research resources to go down and dive and investigate what could be lying below the water in proximity to those painting sites. So what we were doing is a similar survey. We were trying to collect a photogrammetry model, where you take hundreds or thousands of pictures of a structure and using advanced software, you can create a three-dimensional replica of that site. We did a very detailed, awesome 3D photogrammetry model of the painted rock site itself, everything above the water, using aerial drones. And we were going to pair it with a photogrammetry model of everything underneath the water, so that we'd have a two-scale, accurate depiction of everything above and below the water for archaeological cataloging.

9:47 - In order to take such a detailed photo scan, we had to pilot the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) at a consistent distance away from the cliff face. We had to have a strict survey grid to ensure we covered the whole area effectively. When we first went out there, the visibility was not too good. We had some high winds that made it really hard for the boat to hold anchor. As we were piloting the ROV, the boat was dealing with a little bit of drift and pivoting around the anchor due to the shifting wind. We also had big wave action, which made operations a bit more challenging. But luckily, nobody got seasick, though I can attest to the difficulties.

10:27 - You did good, buddy. You did really good.

10:29 - Um, the other thing was the visibility. You know, there were some interesting currents around the Painted Rock site, so sediment and materials were swirling around. As we were trying to take consistent photos, there was backscatter from the particulate matter that altered the images a little bit.

10:45 - But what was really interesting is once we dropped below about 68 feet, around the 70-foot mark, all of that sediment collected on the less dense warm water compared to the cooler, more dense water below that line. So, as soon as we reached that 70-foot mark, all the sediment just kind of dissipated. When we looked up with the rover, we could see the ceiling of sediment swirling around. Below 70 feet, we did have decent visibility, although there was still some denser particulate matter that clouded our view. But we were able to conduct better surveys below that 70-foot mark.

11:25 - The other challenge at Painted Rocks was the risk of entanglement. It's a popular site for anglers, so there was a lot of discarded angling equipment, such as anchors with anchor lines still attached, fishing lines, trolling lines, and other debris. Fishing lines posed a significant risk of getting entangled in the thrusters of the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) and jeopardizing the entire project.

12:09 - Unfortunately, one of my ROVs did get entangled on some material down there. We haven't identified exactly what it got wrapped up on, but during several surveys, I would be moving along, and out of the corner of the lens, I would see something shiny. I would angle my camera to it, and sure enough, it would be a big flasher for a trawling rig, jig, or some sort of fishing lure. Trailing around it would be a bunch of fishing lines. When we were conducting surveys at around 180 feet, just off the cliffs, if the ROV were to get tangled up at that depth, it would be really challenging to go down and recover it easily. Unfortunately, on the second day of our dive survey, that's exactly what happened with my yellow ROV. We were just finishing up a survey, scanning the base of the cliffs for any artifacts that might have collected down there, and the battery was running low. 

13:04 - I'm like, "We got just enough juice to get up to the surface, and you know, I've got an extra battery. We can finish our survey." So, I'm coming up from about 187 feet, and then it was going up just fine. But once it hit that 70-foot mark, it wasn't ascending anymore. That's not good. It had gotten hung up on the bottom. After a couple of attempts to navigate around, it wasn't coming loose. We decided to pause our survey.

13:31 - I have a second ROV equipped with a manipulator arm, which is very useful for diving down and untangling lures or lines from any structures. So, I decided to deploy the second ROV and make a good recovery. As soon as I kicked the blue ROV into the lake, about 30 feet down, the second most dreaded thing for an ROV pilot happened—a flood alert. There's a sensor inside the electronics bay that can detect moisture. There must have been a small nick in one of the O-rings or something that was causing water to seep in. Instead of losing two ROVs, I quickly surfaced with the blue ROV.

14:20 - Unfortunately, we weren't able to untangle the yellow ROV that day. The wind was picking up, and it was getting a little choppy on the water. So, I made the call to abandon the yellow ROV. I rushed home that day and worked all night to ensure the O-rings were sealed. I did a pressure test to make sure the ROV was once again watertight. The next day, we dropped the ROV down to see if we could make a recovery. Unfortunately, we weren't able to locate it effectively. We did find the remains of the tether and were able to recover the reel and the controller. However, the yellow ROV itself was nowhere to be found. We burned up three whole batteries trying to track it down that day, to no avail.

15:23 - On the third day, my dad and I rigged up a cutting implement for the blue ROV's manipulator arm. This way, we could dive down, cut the tether if it was tangled up, and then use the manipulator arm to grab onto it and recover it. Finally, on the third day, we were navigating around, and we were able to find that trailing piece of tether. We followed it to where the ROV was resting on the bottom.

15:46 - We navigated around the cliffs again, around that 180-foot arc, and there we were able to grab onto the yellow ROV and make a recovery. Right now, I pulled the ROV out, and there was a little bit of water in the housing for the yellow ROV. I stretched it out and dried out all the electronics boards. There's still a chance that it's salvageable, but the only way to find out for sure is if we get another controller and another tether to make sure everything is good to go. There's definitely a lot to work out on this project, but it's still exciting and a lot of fun.

16:22 - The yellow ROV was underwater for two days. We were able to salvage some of the footage off of it. SD cards are pretty robust, so we're still processing a lot of that information. With the blue ROV, we were able to deploy it and capture pictures of an outboard motor, as well as perform a thorough scan of the debris and rocks below the painted rock site off the vertical shelf. So, there is still some useful information that we pulled from it. Whether or not the ROV itself is salvageable, we'll find out at the end of the week.

17:06 - At least it wasn't a total loss, and it was an adventure, right? Last week, we were back on the Kiyomi. It was not an easy boat to find. Even with GPS reference, it can still be hard to track down sites. The Kiyomi was one of the first wrecks we dove on back in 2016 when I was getting into underwater videography. We used side scan to locate where the Kiyomi is presently. One of the first things I did was mark a GPS waypoint. In 2020 or 2022, we deployed the ROV with my underwater GPS system to test it and ensure the surface GPS synced up properly with the underwater GPS. We verified the coordinates and knew where the Kiyomi was located. We took Jeremy and Mike Chapin, another diver we were working with, to that site, and we took our boat directly over those waypoints. We were running a pontoon boat, so it was basically...

18:22 - just sails, right? A lot of surface area to catch the wind. So it didn't seem like there was that much wind on that day we were out there, but it was enough to continually blow the boat off of our target.

18:25 - So we did deploy an anchor, looked like it was holding pretty good. And the objective was to throw over the blue ROV to find where the wreck was or confirm where the wreck was. And then me and Mike would just scuba dive down and we'd follow the tether to where the wreck was. Simple plan, right? That's not how it works.

18:55 - So, we dropped the ROV in right on the spot, sent it down to the bottom. And when we were where we were expecting a boat, there was... nothing. It wasn't there. So we're like, "Okay, well, we're out of the waypoint, so it must be nearby." So then you start to employ a search pattern with the ROV. You know it's in this general area, you kind of start doing concentric spirals, kind of farther and farther out until you find the target.

19:19 - Well, after about an hour of doing circles, progressively getting farther and farther out, we still hadn't found any of our targets. So I'm like, "What's going on?" So I rechecked our GPS waypoint, and we had drifted about, oh man, maybe at least two, three hundred feet out.

19:36 - Yeah, so that was the first time. So we burned up a whole battery, pulled the ROV back in.

19:42 - Then we set up a new battery, re-navigated over the waypoint, dropped the ROV over a second time. And this time, we were able to find remainders of the railing that was on the back structure of the Kiomi.

19:59 - So as the Kiomi was floating out back in 1937, it was on fire. They were pushing it away from private docks so that it wouldn't catch their private docks on fire. And then the wind started taking it east across Summers Bay, where it started to capsize.

20:09 - If you know how that site around the Kiomi is structured, on the farther west section, you'll see bits of railing. And then you'll see a large tank, either a fuel tank or some other sort of water tank. And then you'll have another large collection of railing and metal structure on the top of the boat. And then you'll get the boat itself. So you actually have kind of like a long line of this debris field. So if you find any one of those points, you just track your compass kind of like northeastly, and then you're going to get right to the main structure.

20:46 - So we found this railing up, it's right here. So Mike and I geared up, we dove

20:52 - Down, we followed the tether. We got to where that railing was, and then the objective was to just help guide the ROV to where the strike was so that Jeremy and our captain could take a look at the boat itself. Once again, not how it works. Always challenges, right?

21:09 - So we ordered our compasses, we started going along, going along, going along. Visibility again wasn't super great in Summers Bay last week. But as we were putting out there, I'm swimming along, I'm like, "Okay, we're at the edge of the tether, so we know we're about 300 feet from the boat from the surface boat."

21:24 - So the Kiomi, did we overshoot it? Was our heading off? So then I start doing a dive pattern once again, trying to pin down where this boat is. And you know, we burned up almost another tank of air trying to find this boat a second time.

21:40 - Then we had to surface, and actually as we were cutting along, we were doing a really wide arc just to make sure we didn't miss anything. And there we saw a perfectly cut trench into the sediment. So it was just our anchor that had been dragging again. When we came up to the surface, we saw that the boat had been drifting about 400 feet to the northwest.

22:00 - Yeah, we had to reposition the anchor. By that time, the wind must have settled down a little bit because we were able to hold anchor pretty well. Drop the last ROV battery and send the ROV out. And there we were able to find the wreck and then make a successful dive on it.

22:14 - I compare it to, like, you have a table with your keys somewhere on this table, you know, and you're like, "Okay, I know it's here. I know I left my keys here. They aren't going anywhere." But, you know, it's just kind of like those things that are right in front of you, but it's just on a much bigger scale.

22:46 - So those are the challenges of trying to find a site that you already know where it is. It's got to be much harder to find a site that you don't know where it is. I mean, obviously, you have a team working with you to help you with this. What does it take to find these sites that people are telling you about?

22:58 - That's good. It's awesome bringing up the rest of the team because this project would not be where it is without an amazing team that we do have. So we're utilizing two different pieces when we're researching and looking for targets to investigate. The first one is the original Thane White maps. Thane White was a historian, and he put together the first map, kind of detailing where some of these...

23:21 - Historic wrecks may be. He did have the Kiyomi logged, but it wasn't anywhere near where he originally mapped the world. So we have a lot of generals like, "Okay, it could be in this area, it could be in Woods Bay, it could be in Summers Bay." There's also a lot of newspaper archives written at the time of the boat sinking, so we can compare that sort of data. Somebody had put together some research.

23:54 - The other components are people who have personal stories or oral histories that they share with us. For example, I think it was someone we'd been talking to, one of their relatives, it met on the Holt Ferry. Their great-grandfather and great-grandmother had met on that ferry. So you have these stories that really tie the community together, associated with some of these sites. But they don't have a lot. They didn't have GPS back in the day. So it's like, "Okay, here in Summers Bay, we heard about a boat that sank, and we think it's over here." We're able to pin down or at least narrow our search area, you know, the size of the North End of Flathead Lake. It's a lot to cover, but if we can narrow that down using newspaper articles or as much information as we can gather, we can bring that down to a smaller, more manageable search area.

24:49 - But yeah, it's an amazing team that we are working with. We've got Julie Bottom. She's the director of the BACC, and she's really heading up a lot of the administrative sides of this project. She's coordinating with donors and other individuals who are contributing and supplying resources and materials to make this project work. We've got two amazing historians on the team, Ed Gillenwater and Kyle Stetler. They're doing a fantastic job digging through these histories, books, and historic news articles to come up with compelling sites to dive on and help narrow the search area down.

25:37 - The other thing about this project is that we're really opening it up to community involvement. A lot of private donors have supplied their personal watercraft or private boat launches...

25:52 - Access to the lakes or rivers near these surveys. We're getting stories from the general public, so anyone out there listening who has a personal story or something associated with Steamboat history or the maritime history in Flathead Lake or the river system, we would absolutely love to hear that because that's all part of making this project move forward and telling the story of our lakes and rivers.

26:19 - The best way to reach out is through the BACC (Bigfork Arts and Cultural Center). You can check us out at baccbigfork.org, and there is a "Contact Us" option. You can also get a hold of Jeremy Weber, who would be happy to take some of these stories as well.

26:43 - Jeremy, thank you so much for the things that you're doing. I mean, having this platform available to share our stories and help the public become more aware of the things that we're doing, it's a pretty amazing resource, and I appreciate what you're doing.

26:56 - If anyone out there does have something they can offer to help move this project forward, we're still looking for different sizes of vessels that we can utilize. We're going to need several divers for the Demarsville scan in the Flathead River, so having a boat that's large enough to accommodate four or five, possibly even six divers and some support crew would be great. The Demarsville scan is scheduled from July 19th through the 27th.

27:33 - We only have funding for just a couple more sites, so if we want to do more projects, we have to get more funding. The challenges, equipment failures, updates, maintenance, and all that stuff take a big chunk out of our budget. Most of the funding goes towards processing the data, equipment updates, and decontamination after every dive.

28:01 - This is a community-based project, and if the community is interested, we really want to continue this project.

28:26 - We do have some resources for you guys to reach out and contribute if you want to help make this project move forward.

28:36 - That's going to do it for this episode of Maritime Mysteries of the Flathead. Thanks for hanging out with us today, and join us next time as we dive into the mysteries of the Kiyomi and its 86 years at the bottom of Summers Bay during the Great Depression era.

28:49 - Thank you so much, Kyra. Nice talking to you. Looking forward to it.