Please share what you can about this wreck. I've never heard of it before... and welcome to SB.
Seems to have been dived a fair bit
SS Kamloops - Wikipedia
From what I understand, it is quite a technical dive so it is not one of the most dived sites in the Great Lakes, by any means. But due to the somewhat.. infamous? state of it, it is quite the draw for many, and can have ~100 dives to it a year? If I understand correctly, it is not a full on regulated site, but it is one with only a few specific companies(?) that are allowed to take divers to it. So that combined with the highly technical aspect of it does somewhat limit the amount of people who have been to it. But it is definitely not so rare that only a couple of people have seen it, that is for certain!
Without getting into writing a whole essay about it here, the SS Kamloops (and her sister ship, the Lethbridge, which was scrapped in the 60s) was a canaller built in 1924 to the largest specifications that the Welland Canal (connecting Lake Ontario and Lake Erie) at the time could afford with the intent of shipping goods back and forth between Montreal and present-day Thunder Bay, which would take them through four of the five Great Lakes.
In its few years on the Great Lakes, it ended two of its seasons trapped frozen in ice (1924 and 1926), with the conclusion of its season and career in December 1927 also ending due to an ice-covered, winter storm in Lake Superior, so close to her final destination. Not much is known about what caused the Kamloops to founder, but what has been pieced together and theorized is that during the storm something happened to the engine - *possibly* the smokestack being completely dislodged (as far as I know, the smokestack's location is entirely unknown so it cannot be confirmed or denied when it came apart from the rest of the ship). Either way, the result was that the engine was shut down, with the telegraph set to "Finished with engines," indicating that the ship was completely without power for some time before sinking. This would also explain the location the shipwreck was found in, as I have read that it is not an area that an experienced captain would have purposely navigated towards (and Captain William Brian was experienced). Left floating wherever the stormy water decided to take her, it appears that the Kamloops then proceeded, at some point between December 6th and 7th, 1927, ran aground off Isle Royale and quickly sank.
Some of the crew managed to get aboard one of the two lifeboats (there seems to be some evidence of a starboard list for the last bit before sinking, which would have also made the port side lifeboat too high from the water to use, which is supported by the wreck evidence). In total, nine of the 20-22 (possibly more - no full crew list has yet to be found) crew members made it to shore of Isle Royale (though I am not entirely sure if all of them were in the lifeboat, and if all of them survived until arriving to shore), but, unfortunately, all who made it ashore died of exposure (before they could starve). Then, to make matters even better, they were subject to the island's wolves.
As for the remaining ~11-13 crew, many of them are preserved within the Kamloops at the bottom of Lake Superior. As far as I can tell, (this is one of the biggest areas that speaking to divers who have been down there can help), several of the crew have been found aboard the ship (I think the highest I've read was seven?), with the most famous one being that of the crewman in the engine room (often nicknamed "Old Whitey" or "Grandpa" - though, if I understand correctly, his body is nicknamed "Old Whitey" while his ghost is nicknamed "Grandpa"?).
There is a LOT more that I have not covered here (including a literal message in a bottle), but I have probably made this post long enough already! It truly is a fascinating shipwreck and I still have so much more about it that I want to learn.
