By Donna Deal
PETOSKEY -- Every year that there is enough ice for safety, on the Little Traverse Bay of Lake Michigan, near Petoskey, scuba divers go under the ice on the Bay to clean the algae, muck and other accumulated dirt off a huge, marble, underwater crucifix. The crucifix is a memorial to divers who have lost their lives in the Great Lakes. And every year many people walk across the ice to see the crucifix, through a hole cut into the ice and covered by a tent, so the light will be such that they can see the crucifix below. The people also try to time their visit so that they can watch the divers slide into the frigid water and sink under the ice to clean the crucifix. The cleaning can only be done when the ice has been in place long enough to calm the waves and waters so that the visibility is totally clear. The thick ice must be cut to permit the divers to go below. And of course the ice must be thick enough to hold the divers, their equipment, the vehicles that carry the divers and equipment to the site and to hold all the people who follow the divers out, to see the crucifix. The area has two tents and two holes that have been cut into the thick ice. One tent is directly over the crucifix and the hole in the ice that the tent covers shades it so that visibility is clear from above, and people visiting the site that day can look down at the crucifix. The other tent holds diver's equipment and gives them a changing room so they can change from ordinary winter wear to their wet suits and diving equipment.
Each participating diver is tethered to the surface, to assure that he can find his way back to the surface, because once under the ice it would otherwise be nearly impossible to find their way back to the hole from which they descended. I spoke to one man who'd once dove under the ice in the Bay and had gotten lost even though he had a line tied to his wrist that was tied to a float in the hole in the ice. He became completely disoriented and so frightened that he forgot he forgot about the line tied to his wrist to guide him back to the surface. He rose to the ice and tried to cut himself free of it. The ice was about 10' thick, so of course that would have been impossible. Fortunately he finally got a bit entangled in the line, which reminded him of it's existence, and he followed the line back to the hole in the ice. Without a line or tether, however, he'd have died, as many ice divers before him have.
How the crucifix originally came to be sunk in Little Traverse Bay is another story. It seems that a very rich man once commissioned an Italian artist to carve it from a huge chunk of marble, to be a memorial to his dead son. The crucifix was carved. The man went to Italy, looked at it and approved it, so it was shipped to Michigan from Italy. When it arrived, however, the man found that it had somehow been damaged during it's journey and he found it unacceptable for it's desired use. He rejected it. Being too expensive to return to Italy, the huge work of art sat around for many years. At some point it came to the attention of some Michigan divers, who wanted it as a memorial for divers who'd lost their lives in the Great Lakes. It was moved to Little Traverse Bay and sunk off shore of Petoskey. Interestingly, Richard's father's yacht was chosen to carry the priest who was to bless the memorial crucifix out to the site.
This year I didn't time my visit to the crucifix correctly to allow me to take photos of the divers sliding into the water nor of them cleaning the crucifix. One diver had left some vital equipment behind, setting my timing off and I had not dressed warmly enough to just stand around on the ice in the cold wind. I did, however, get some photos of divers preparing their equipment, of divers assuring themselves of the adequacy of the hole they were to descend from, and of course of the crucifix itself, in it's deep, watery resting place. If you have never seen this yourself, check out these photos. Going out to watch the divers slide under the thick ice to clean the huge crucifix is just one of the many winter activities in Northern Michigan, and one that is unique to the Petoskey area of the Little Traverse Bay of Lake Michigan.
This article submitted as part of upnorthlive.com's Citizen Journalist program.
