A ship that sank on Lake Huron 128 years ago is found nearly intact off Ontario's Bruce Peninsula

A documentary crew filming an upcoming feature about the ecological impact of invasive mussels in the Great Lakes has unravelled a 128-year-old mystery with the discovery of a previously unknown shipwreck near the Bruce Peninsula. 

The Africa, an American cargo steamer, vanished in 1895 on its way from Ashtabula, Ohio, to Owen Sound, Ont. The ship set off on Oct. 4, 1895, with the barge Severn in tow. Both vessels were loaded with coal and bound for Georgian Bay until a snowstorm snapped the towline separating both vessels. 

The Severn hit shallow ground and broke on the western shoals of the Bruce Peninsula, while the Africa was lost with all 11 members of the crew on board. 

The wreck was discovered in June by Yvonne Drebert and Zachary Melnick while filming the upcoming TVO documentary All Too Clear — a film about the incalculable ecological damage wrought by invasive fresh water mussels after their release into the Great Lakes more than three decades ago. 

The Great Lakes region is well known as some of the best shipwreck diving in the world, but a combination of climate change and invasive zebra and quagga mussels have accelerated the deterioration of the region's underwater heritage.

The approximately 1,400 known shipwrecks around the Great Lakes have become encrusted with millions of invasive mussels that are eating away and collapsing their hulls, according to preservationists, who believe they may only have another decade or two before the sunken vessels become unrecognizable. 

The irony, according to the filmmakers, is that the shipwreck, found 280 feet [85.3 metres] below the surface, might never have been discovered had it not been for the mussels, which have transformed the lakes by making its once murky turquoise waters almost crystal clear through the thumbnail-sized creature's ability to filter up to a litre of lake water a day.