The Great Lakes freighter SS Scotiadoc was a 424-foot (129-meter)-long, 48-foot (15-meter)-wide, and 23.75-foot (7.24-meter)-deep dry bulk freighter built in the early 1900s for the iron ore, coal, and grain trades on the Great Lakes. The Lakewood Steamship Co. of Cleveland, Ohio, commissioned the SS Martin Mullen, which was launched as hull number 422 by the American Ship Building Co. of Columbus.
Martin Mullen made frequent trips to and from ports in the Duluth area. Paterson Steamships bought her in 1947 and renamed her Scotiadoc.
On June 20, 1953, off Trowbridge Island, near the Sleeping Giant in Lake Superior, the Scotiadoc was rammed by the Canadian steamer Burlington in heavy fog. One crew member was killed. Captain George Edgar Morris testified that he detected Burlington on radar at a distance of 5 nautical miles (9.3 km; 5.8 mi). Burlington collided with Scotiadoc’s starboard side near the stern. The two ships had seen each other on radar and had their fog horns blaring, but they made no attempt to communicate.
In 2013, shipwreck hunters Jerry Eliason, Kraig Smith, and Ken Merryman discovered the wreck, in Canadian waters, only 30 kilometres from Thunder Bay by scanning government records and using sonar. It is the Great Lakes’ deepest shipwreck, resting at 850 feet (259 meters).
