Is it an octopus? asks a four-year-old. No, a shipwreck from 1871.

It started as a typical summer outing for Tim Wollak and his daughter, Henley, 4. On a clear morning on August 13, they set off in their 20-foot boat from the east coast of Wisconsin. The sky was blue and the water flat and calm, perfect conditions for them to explore the shallow waters of the bay and look for walleye, big-eyed game fish common in Lake Michigan.

But then, about three hours into their outing, Mr. Wollak, a 36-year-old medical equipment salesman, and Henley, who was two days away from her fifth birthday, found their lives intersecting with history.

A shipwreck from the 1871 Peshtigo fire was about to reveal itself.

As they chugged along the shoals of Green Island, their boat’s sonar provided images of shadows, sand and indistinct rock formations on the bottom of the bay about 10 feet below them. Then a group of long, slender objects came into view, forming a pattern far too regular to have been formed by erosion or waves. Mr. Wollak turned to his one-man crew.

“I immediately said, ‘Henley, come over here and take a look at this. What do you think it is?’ he said in a recent interview. “She thought it was an octopus.”

The Great Lakes served as an important commercial hub in the 19th century, providing a shipping passage to the East Coast via the Erie Canal. More than 3,000 ships have been lost in Lake Michigan, said Brendon Baillod, president of the Wisconsin Underwater Archeology Association.

Mr Wollak said he had occasionally come across lost ships, usually the odd rowboat, but he had never seen one so large. He navigated around the site trying to get a better view of the ship, which was partially buried. He took a photo of the sonar image and posted it online, marveling at the frame’s radiating ribs that his daughter had interpreted as tentacles.

On December 11, historians in Wisconsin looked at the footage and identified it as most likely the wreckage of the George L Newmana 30 meter long wooden ship with three masts that sank in 1871.

“The ship was abandoned, became covered in sand and largely forgotten – until it was uncovered last summer and located near the Wollaks,” according to the Wisconsin Historical Society. said in a statement.

The Wollak family lives in Peshtigo, northeastern Wisconsin, an area that flourished in the 19th century thanks to the logging industry, but also experienced fires and smoke due to the industry’s practices.

On October 8, 1871, the George L. Newman, carrying wood, was enveloped in smoke from a fire on land exacerbated by dry conditions. The Peshtigo fire Ultimately, it burned 1.2 million acres across parts of Michigan’s Northeastern and Upper Peninsula, killing an estimated 2,000 people, making it one of the deadliest fires in U.S. history.

The smoke was so thick that a lighthouse keeper kept the light on during the day on Green Island in the bay, but the George L. Newman became stuck on the southeastern tip of the island, according to the Wisconsin Historical Society. The crew was rescued, but the ship was lost.

After the historical society’s Maritime Preservation and Archeology Program noticed Mr. Wollak’s photographs, it worked with conservationists from the Department of Natural Resources to examine the wreck using a remotely operated vehicle, concluding that the site matched what was known about the ship’s fate.

Another survey to confirm its inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places is planned for spring 2024, the Historical Society said.

But Mr. Baillod said he was confident the George L. Newman had been found. The accidental discovery of wrecked ships, or what was left of them, in the clear waters of the lake has become easier with Google Earth and sonar, he said.

“People often drive over something and think it’s an old building or part of a dock, when it’s actually a historic ship,” he said.

However, there are no octopuses in the Great Lakes.

“Never been,” he said.