Summer is always the best time to go swimming.
It’s one of the ways to beat the summer heat while having fun with family and friends.
We can go to the beach or a nearby lake to spend the free hours of our day.
But it’s rare to discover something unusual during one of these escapades.
Three teenage boys didn’t expect what they’d find underwater when they went swimming.
Eli Hill, Jackson Holcomb, and Creek Hyatt were swimming in Lake Waccamaw in North Carolina one summer when Eli hit something he thought was only a log.
They tried to pick it up to take it out of the way, but it wouldn’t budge.
Determined to remove the obstruction from the water, the boys started digging and pulling it out repeatedly, but it just kept going.
They returned the next day with the same goal in mind but to no avail.
It was near the Hill family’s pier, so they decided to finally ask for help from experts.
Eli’s family called the North Carolina Office of State Archaeology to help pull out this enormous “log.”
The team inspected what it was and were baffled at how a log could be that long.
They kept digging until they discovered this was no ordinary log stuck at the bottom of the lake.
The boys accidentally discovered a 1,000-year-old canoe of a Native American tribe!
According to State Archeologist John Mintz, the canoe once belonged to the Waccamaw Siouan Tribe, whose homeland is situated on the edge of Green Swamp, only seven miles from Lake Waccamaw.
It took days for the archeologists to dig it out of the lakebed and move it closer to the Hill’s family pier, where it sat for two years.
They waited for the Waccamaw Siouan Tribe to witness this moment since this piece of history belonged to them.
“This canoe is about 1,000 years old, and it’s a southeastern Indian canoe, and it’s originated from this area. So, we wanted the local Indian group to be part of it and share with the agency of it,” John Mintz told WECT News 6.
The tribe was there to celebrate this historical moment, and honor and gratitude filled the air.
Waccamaw Siouan Chief Michael Jacobs said that this discovery is giving their tribe a chance to learn more about the history of their culture.
It was a meaningful gesture to them and opened an opportunity to explore and piece together what would unfold from examining the canoe in the laboratory.
They will take the canoe into a laboratory in Greenville to study and preserve this artifact.
“We’re looking forward to examining it, running some tests on it, really finding out and going back to our elders and getting the history of it to where we can teach the truth to our people and know that we’ve got concrete evidence to stand on,” said the tribe chief.
And although Eli discovered this by accident, he felt it was very important to the tribe.
It may have started as a mere “log” he accidentally stepped on, but he was happy to be part of this momentous event seeing what it meant to the Waccamaw Siouan people.
Watch how everyone worked together to take the ancient canoe out of the water in the videos below!
