The Gunilda Shipwreck: Surprising Tales from the Depths

The story of the luxury steam yacht Gunilda didn’t end on August 30^th, 1911, when it met its watery fate resting 270 feet below the surface of Lake Superior. The shipwreck remains a living history to this very day. 

To learn all about this extravagant vessel, the expeditions that William Harkness took on the Gunilda, and his role in why she ultimately sank, check out the origin story of the Gunilda here. For more about her current status as an epic shipwreck, read on!

The Gunilda evokes much interest from anyone who hears about it, particularly technical divers interested in shipwrecks. Because the Gunilda didn’t sustain any damage during its sinking, the elaborate beauty of the yacht remains intact. Coupled with the rumours of the riches aboard, there has been over a century of intrigue regarding the sinking of this fine vessel.

Attempts to find the Gunilda

Since the sinking, there have been many failed attempts at locating the vessel. One such attempt occurred in the fall of 1922, using grappling hooks attached to wire rope. Most of the hooks were lost but a Gunilda lifeboat davit made of manila rope was brought to the surface. This salvage attempt was abandoned after so many unsuccessful tries.

In the 1930s hard-hat diver Ed “Doc” Fowler tried to locate the Gunilda. The equipment used by hard-hat or copper-hat divers at the time could typically only reach a maximum depth of around 60 metres (200 feet) in the most optimal conditions. With the Gunilda being 83 metres (270 feet) down and not having the precise location of the wreck, Doc Fowler's extensive search remained ultimately fruitless.

The first SCUBA (Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus) dive attempt was by Jack Coughlan. He tied a 150-foot-long rope around his waist and descended into the depths of Lake Superior. As he got deeper, he began to experience nitrogen narcosis, a condition that impairs judgment and coordination due to increased pressure commonly occurring around 100 feet deep. Coughlan decided to call it a day and safely returned to the surface.

There were many other attempts at finding the Gunilda since 1911, but no success was had until...

The Discovery

In 1967 an experienced diver named Chuck Zender sought to locate the Gunilda. Zender used SCUBA gear for his dives which was quite advanced in that era. This gear and his diving skills allowed him to be the first to reach the depths of the Gunilda and lay eyes on her after 56 years. He alleged there was more than 3 million dollars worth of valuables on board the intact Gunilda.

This discovery ignited a ton of interest among technical divers and historians. The following year, brothers Ed and Harold Flatt started the first salvage attempt after the discovery. They brought a barge and cranes to the site and were able to hook onto Gunilda’s hull and bring a piece of the mast to the surface. Their luck was short lived as a major storm destroyed the barge and the majority of their equipment.

A Life-long Obsession Begins

Word of the Gunilda and the Flatt brothers’ salvage attempt reached Fred Broennle, a diver and electrical businessman in Thunder Bay. From that moment a lifelong obsession began for Fred. The award-winning 1997 documentary Drowning in Dreams produced by the National Film Board of Canada perfectly showcases his fixation with the Gunilda.

Fred enlisted the help of Ed Flatt to pinpoint the dive location as he had already successfully found the Gunilda and would have the coordinates. He asked his diving instructor and close friend, Charles "King" Hague to join him on this expedition. At the age 23, King was an incredibly passionate and skilled diver, having participated in numerous recovery missions to retrieve those lost to the waters. He was also one of only a couple of certified NAUI (National Association of Underwater Instructors) instructors in the area. 

It was almost exactly 59 years since the sinking of the Gunilda when Fred and King attempted this dive in August 1970. King was accompanied by his wife, Maria, to Rossport, Ontario. Fred also brought along his wife, Ruth, and one of their five sons, 12-year-old Mark. They had the absolute best diving equipment there was at the time. They brought with them the Lady Go Diver, a 36-foot-long steel boat with a swim platform, and smaller 18-foot aluminum boat. 

Maria Phipps (Hague) recounted to me the events that took place. Fred and King dove for 3 days trying to find the Gunilda. Repeatedly having to decompress before surfacing and dropping weights to try and determine the water depth. It was an exhausting and discouraging process. 

"Upon reflection, King in particular was exhausted, and Fred was too." Maria said, "They weren't in the best physical shape that they could have been had it been day one."

One fateful day

On the fourth day, August 8, 1970, Fred, King, Ed Flatt, Maria, Ruth, and Mark left from the Rossport Harbour Marina on the Lady Go Diver towing behind the smaller boat to the dive site. It was a gorgeous morning, the sun was shining, the coffee was hot, and the song It Never Rains in California was playing on the stereo. Little did anyone know, this was the calm before the storm.

When they arrived at the dive site and anchored down, it was time to get to work. Fred and King had a drawn-up grid and a compass, so they didn't miss an inch. They continued their routine as they had the days prior by dropping a weight from a line. It continued to come back up with nothing on it time and time again, until...King excitedly exclaimed "I'm going down! I just brought up white paint and I think we might have found it!" 

He threw on his wet suit and tanks in a flash like a second set of skin. As he stood on the stern of the Lady Go Diver ready to jump, Maria asked him to turn around for a picture. "No I gotta go," he said curtly thinking only about the mission at hand and more determined than ever to find the Gunilda after four days of trying. This would end up being the very last time Maria or anyone would see him alive, immortalized forever in this haunting photo.

Maria stood on the stern watching King's bubbles circling then suddenly after about ten minutes the bubbles stopped. Maria and Fred saw King's lit dive light slowly floating to the surface. In Drowning in Dreams Fred recounts this moment. "I thought King was underneath the dive light and when I seen about 10 feet down there was no hand attached to the dive light. That's when I went down."

Suddenly, Ed Flatt went to the bow of the Lady Go Diver clutching his chest, panicked, claiming that he was having a heart attack. The timing of this panic was suspicious, as was the location where King had pulled up the white paint. Ed insisted that the wreck was on the other side of the cliff, and all of the soundings and searching they were doing were on the wrong side of the shoal. Was this sudden panic attack due to guilt? With two men now in the water seemingly in trouble, guilt for knowingly leading them astray would be the least he should have felt. Or was it fear? Fear of being exposed as a liar. 

By early afternoon the sky was overcast and the waters began getting rough. Maria jumped into the aluminum boat and took off toward Copper Island. She eventually spotted Fred about a kilometre away from the Lady Go Diver. His mask was full of blood; he was thrashing around and going berserk. He couldn't climb into the small boat, so Maria tied a rope as best she could around him and towed him back to the Lady Go Diver. 

Fred had indeed seen the Gunilda while he was down there, but he didn't find King. The Rapture of the Deep or nitrogen narcosis had begun to take over him, though he was fortunately able to get to the surface and brought to safety by Maria. By this time, it had been about 2 hours since King descended and unfortunately, all hope of him returning alive had been lost. 

Fred and Deep Diving Systems

Since that day, Fred never gave up on finding his friend King's body or salvaging the Gunilda. He set up a company in 1973 called Deep Diving Systems in an effort to raise the Gunilda. He built several diving bells, and purchased several barges, cranes, a hot water suit, a boiler, a decompression chamber, and a Biomarine CCR 1000 rebreather. Three years later, he purchased the Gunilda from Lloyd's of London, the insurance company that paid out to William Harkness when she sank. Even with this purchase, there has long been debate over who owns the Gunilda.

On July 13, 1976, while exploring the Gunilda with underwater cameras, Fred finally located King's body near the port side of the yacht's stern and recovered his body to be put to rest. The mast that the Flatt brothers had brought up from the Gunilda in 1968 has been refinished and now stands as a memorial to Charles King Hague outside the Rossport Inn.

In September of that same year, Fred planned to dive using his submersible, Constructor, which had cost Deep Diving Systems $2.5 million to design and build. Unfortunately, the financial burden of the Constructor led to the bankruptcy of both him and Deep Diving Systems.

Cousteau and the Calypso

The Gunilda had piqued the attention of famed oceanographer, film maker, and author Jacques Cousteau and the Cousteau Society in 1980. They used the research vessel Calypso and the diving saucer SP-350 to dive and film the wreck. The Cousteau Society deemed the Gunilda "the best preserved, most prestigious shipwreck in the world." The added that it is, "the most beautiful shipwreck in the world."

The Second Tragedy

Reg Barrett was a diver from Burlington, Ontario. The lure of the Gunilda drew Reg to Rossport in 1989. He had been described as a diver who believed his method was superior and was not receptive to alternative views on diving. While he may have been a bit eccentric he was an experienced diver. Not much is documented about Reg Barrett's Gunilda dive. An inquest into his death was never conducted, leaving a lot of unanswered questions and sordid rumours. The facts that we do know are that on August 12, 1989, at 53 years old, Reg didn't make it back from his Gunilda dive. This was 78 years since the sinking of the Gunilda and the second life she drew into the depths of Lake Superior.

The Gunilda Today

Some fortunate passengers of the Viking Polaris Cruise Ship were able to receive a first-hand Gunilda experience. Aboard the cruise ship on June 10th, 2024 they were given a never-before-seen presentation by Charles King Hague's widow, Maria Phipps, and screened the documentary Drowning in Dreams. This offered insight and appreciation for what they were to experience later that day. For the first time ever, non-technical divers were able to see the Gunilda. A submersible took passengers down 270 feet into Lake Superior for an unforgettable view of the luxury yacht. Since then, more cruise ship passengers have been down in a submersible to see the Gunilda in the summer of 2024. 

During my research, I've noticed many parallels and synchronicities throughout Gunilda's enduring story. The stubbornness of William Harkness and Fred Broennle, both wealthy men who never bent for anyone regardless of the cost, and both owning the Gunilda in one way or another. The name King has come up in three different instances, times, and places. Cox & King, the company that designed the Gunilda, the late Charles King Hague, and a story I came across in a 1990 article in Lake Superior Magazine of an 18-year-old named Dolf King who was present in 1911 at MacGarvey Shoal along with William Harkness to witness the salvage attempt prior to the sinking. Three Kings... I feel like there's some symbolism there that I just can't grasp. Maybe what I'm grasping is straws, though I found it interesting nonetheless. Also, each tragedy happened in the month of August. First the sinking of the Gunilda on August 30, 1911, with no loss of life, then the loss of Charles King Hague on August 8, 1970, and finally the loss of Reg Barrett on August 12, 1989.

I think its safe to say that the story of the Gunilda will continue for years to come. What other diving stories will she have? Will someone one day finally raise her from the depths of Lake Superior? Or will she one day end up being a forgotten relic? Only time will tell.

Many thanks to:

Maria Phipps

The Schreiber Public Library 

Jan Willem Bech from therebreathersite.eu

Superior Country

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