HAPPY VALLEY-GOOSE BAY — Next week a Labrador diver hopes to continue probing an area under the Churchill River in the hopes of proving a Second World War-era German U-Boat lies 60-feet below the service.
Goose Bay diver Brian Corbin took sonar images generated from a remote-operated vehicle and side-scan sonar technology provided by the Stephan Hopkins Memorial Foundation, a group that helps recover bodies of drowning victims.
The sonar images were taken within two kilometres of Muskrat Falls while searching for three drowning victims in 2010. The images show what appeared to be a large chunk of metal and upon later examination, with the help of Deer Lake's Junior Pinksen, show the metal item to be approximately 30 metres long, the same length as a German U-Boat.
"We're hoping to get back out next week," Corbin said. "I'm pretty sure this is down there, we hope to prove that to the negative people out there."
Stories have been passed around in the area of German U-Boats visiting the east coast of Canada, and in fact a weather station set up by the Germans during the Second World War was discovered in northern Labrador several years ago.
Corbin said it was important they not be seen as treasure hunters, rather, someone looking for the truth about what is beneath the river. The new piece of equipment he is waiting on, called a pinpoint magnometre, will help measure what he thinks could be a historical find.
"If we can go down there with the pinpoint magnometre and measure the space between the bow and the stern, and it measures 30 metres, then OK ... we have something," said Corbin.
Most of the object is covered in sand, but Corbin said items that can be made out include, the deck, a gun mount and snorkels used to bring in air without surfacing, a well as cables usually attached to the top of U-boats.
