Cool Finds

A Diver Volunteered to Clean Up Trash From a Wisconsin Lake. He Discovered a 1,000-Year-Old Dugout Canoe at the Bottom Instead

Indigenous communities near present-day Milwaukee hand-carved the white-oak vessel before shaping it with fire between roughly 992 and 1049 C.E.

Sarah Kuta | Daily Correspondent

October 6, 2026 10:10 a.m.

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Mark Schachtner was just about to wrap up his dive session in Wisconsin’s Pewaukee Lake when he spotted a long object resting on the lake floor. Intrigued, Schachtner swam closer and began to inspect the mysterious object. Within a few seconds, he realized he was looking at a canoe, possibly an extremely old one.

Now, experts with the Wisconsin Historical Society have determined that the vessel is a roughly 1,000-year-old dugout canoe, likely handcrafted and used by Indigenous communities in the late 10th or early 11th century.

Numerous dugout canoes have been found throughout Wisconsin, including 16 in an ancient canoe “parking lot” in Lake Mendota, near the state capital Madison. But the newly discovered vessel is believed to be the first found in Pewaukee Lake, a 2,437-acre, spring-fed body of water located in Waukesha County, on the western outskirts of Milwaukee.

Schachtner, a 45-year-old member of the 4 Seasons Scuba Diving Club, was participating in a volunteer trash cleanup dive in Pewaukee Lake on May 6 when he spotted the canoe. Immediately, he realized that he had stumbled upon something special. He made note of the vessel’s location and got in touch with Tamara Thomsen, a maritime archaeologist with the society.

“It stuck out to me,” Schachtner tells the Wisconsin State Journal’s Barry Adams, adding that he was aware of the dugout canoes previously found by Thomsen and her colleagues in Lake Mendota. “I always keep my eyes peeled. There’s not much for big logs down there unless it’s a fish crib or something. The whole thing was sticking out.”

Five days after Schachtner’s initial discovery, he and Thomsen returned to the site together to take measurements, snap photos and videos, and collect a small sample of the wood. The vessel, which archaeologists say is in good condition, measures 17.3 feet long by 1.8 feet wide at its thickest point, with 2.5-inch-thick walls and a 4.8-inch-thick bottom.

In August, the society received the results of radiocarbon dating and wood identification tests, which revealed that the canoe was crafted roughly a millennia ago from white oak. Testing revealed a 70 percent chance the canoe was created between 992 and 1049 C.E., an era known to archaeologists as the Late Woodland Period, when the Mississippian culture was flourishing and Indigenous groups were building effigy mounds and growing maize.

To better understand the canoe, the society’s experts are consulting with Larry Plucinski, tribal historic preservation officer for the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, and Bill Quackenbush, a retired tribal historic preservation officer for the Ho-Chunk Nation. Both are longtime tribal partners on the Wisconsin Dugout Canoe Survey Project, which is being spearheaded by Thomsen and Sissel Schroeder, an anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Today, the canoe rests on the lake bottom, roughly 15 feet below the surface. But 1,000 years ago, experts suspect that the site was above water, located along the lake’s ancient shoreline. The vessel was probably parked there intentionally for later use, Plucinski tells the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Caitlin Looby.

Dugout canoes were once an essential means of transportation. They were typically shared by the broader community rather than owned by individuals. “It was just common knowledge that nobody owned it,” Plucinski tells the Wisconsin State Journal. “If you needed it, you used it.”

The canoe appears to have been carved by hand—possibly using shells or stone tools—and shaped using fire, a process that likely “took a lot of time,” Jon Greendeer, president of the Ho-Chunk Nation, tells Wisconsin Public Radio’s Danielle Kaeding. “You can imagine how much work went into each one of these.”

Over the centuries, the canoe was likely exposed to temperature fluctuations, dragging anchors and other disturbances. But it’s partially filled with sediment, which may have helped protect it from damage. “It’s very remarkable that it’s intact and as beautiful as it is,” Thomsen tells the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

In accordance with the wishes of Wisconsin’s Indigenous nations, the canoe will remain submerged in the lake. Keeping it underwater will also give the vessel the best chance of preservation, the society notes.

The exact location is being kept private, although local and regional conservation wardens know where it is. Divers may visit the site, but state law prohibits removing, defacing, displacing or destroying the vessel.

While this may be the first canoe discovered in Pewaukee Lake, Plucinski suspects it won’t be the last. Given how important the vessels were for transportation, he believes that similar vessels are likely still waiting to be discovered.

“This might be one of many more people will find,” Plucinski tells the Wisconsin State Journal. “No matter what lake you go to, there’s probably canoes out there.”

Sarah Kuta is a writer and editor based in Longmont, Colorado. She covers history, science, travel, food and beverage, sustainability, economics and other topics.