The "Weesoe"

Caption: "The Weesoe was presented to the Deep River Yacht and Tennis Club in the summer of 1959 by Mr. J Blimkie of Chalk River for use as a crash and general rescue boat. The pointer boat built at Chalk River in 1954 was made from Ottawa Valley pine"

Photo taken by Lorna Bourns
Pg 57
"Deep River 1945-1995 A Pictorial History"
Joan Melvin 1995

The "Weesoe" was a local anglified nickname for the french word for bird "oiseaux" of a 25-30' Cockburn square sterned pointer with a six cylinder Gray Marine midships mounted inboard engine with an arched roof and mast that was built originally for Blimkie Lumber of Balmer's Bay. Cameron Blimkie tells me that he remembers driving it as a kid for his uncle picking up deadheads on the river. The Weesoe was donated to the Deep River Yacht and Tennis Club in 1959 when Joseph Blimkie sold his property to Ed Sawchuk a local teacher. It was moored every spring, summer and fall in its own custom crib at the end of the Deep River pier and stored at CRNL every winter.

It was used as a Race Operations or "Crash Boat" for many years and I had the priviledge to operate it for several summers as a Race Director in the evenings and weekends for the period from 1968 to 1970.

The Yacht Club in its ultimate wisdom scuttled the Weesoe to the bottom of the Ottawa River rather than repair it not realizing that it was, in fact, a historical artifact of local Ottawa River history. The Deep River Underwater Club has used it as a dive project sight in recent years based on the following documentation borrowed from their website.

Wreck of the Weeso

Situation – in 2005 the site where the Weeso sunk to the bottom of the Ottawa was found, but the boat is missing. One resident reported observing a similar boat in shallow waters downstream of the site, which will be followed up in 2006.

The Weeso was the original starter boat (and rescue boat) for the Deep River Yacht Club – some of you locals will be able to put an image to mind. It was a wooden vessel roughly 24’ long, with an open cabin (wheelhouse), powered by an inboard/outboard engine. This vessel was originally a “pointer boat” used during the days of booming logs down the Ottawa River. In the 1959 the boat was donated to the Yacht Club. After the end of its useful life, the engine was removed and the boat was sunk (scuttled) in the Ottawa out from the end of the Pier – in the late 1970’s. Some of the people involved in the sinking are still in the area, so local knowledge was used to assist in locating the site (rather, locating the centre point of what would be a search area).

The search for the vessel was carried out in September of 2005, with the search & recovery dive being an element of the NAUI Master Scuba course. The focal point for the search was a GPS fix (307916E, 5108861N, zone 18) on a strange irregularity in the depth profile and sediment density, as determined using a depth sonar (fish finder) and anchor (thumper). This location was particularly attractive because it corroborated with the description of the location of the sinking from the people involved in the 1970’s. The description included the point that the vessel was sunk at the top of the “second drop off” (i.e., in 22 to 25’ of water), which fit the position of the bottom anomaly. The challenging aspect of this search was the fact that the site is in the Ottawa River, which means that limited visibility, darkness, and silting are matters to contend with. At 25’ depth, there is only a trace amount of sunlight that reaches the bottom (the start of the “red zone”), which means “night dive”.

Initial progress with this project involved collecting information on the history and sinking of the Weeso has been collected. An interesting twist to this phase was the report of the Weeso being presently located in shallow water roughly 1 km downstream from the pier (at Tack Point, for those that are familiar with this name). This report came from a person who claims to have seen the vessel in the fall when the Ottawa River level is very low – described as a wooden boat full of rocks. The description fits, but the discrepancy in location was initially thought to be a mystery – perhaps a different vessel that suffered the same fate as the Weeso. How could a boat full of rocks move 1 km and move to a shallower position? Initially, it was thought that this second vessel could not be the Weeso.

On the evening of September xx, the initial Weeso search & recovery dive was executed, with Marc and Peter executing a radial search pattern, and Peter remaining at surface as the rescue diver. Within minutes, the divers had located the cause of the anomalous sonar readings, which was a sharp, elongate depression in the soft, silty sediments of the Ottawa. The depression can be described as a 3 to 4’ “cliff” (vertical face) in the mud. The sediments were so soft that you could extend your arm horizontally to your shoulder with little effort. Given the face that the sediments were originally deposited in a low energy environment (evident from the fine texture of the material), and there were no indications of scouring from period of strong river current, this mud wall had to be man-made. The length of the feature was generally consistent with the Weeso’s length, but the real kicker was the presence of gravel, cobbles and small boulders in the center of the depression. In searching the site, coarse sediments or bedrock was not observed anywhere else, indicating that these coarse sediments were unusual. The fact that they existed in the middle of a boat-shaped depression in the mud is a strong indication that the Weeso resided at this location for some period of time, then rolled over loosing some of its ballast, and moved with the river current to another location.

The absence of the wreck, combined with the sighting of another vessel of similar description provides the basis for the searching in 2006.

Photo of Weeso to come

Photo of the Weeso in the 1970’s

Weesoe in Eastern Algonquin means " To Taste". In the Nipmuc native language it means "Yellow". The Weesoe was neither yellow nor tasty.