A nearly century-old mystery lurking beneath the cold waters of Lake Minnewanka has finally been solved: scuba divers have confirmed the existence of a long-lost car resting in the lake’s depths.It took only minutes for Airdrie resident and seasoned diver John Ryan and his team to verify a rumour that had circulated for years — that a car had sunk in Lake Minnewanka sometime in the late 1920s or early 1930s.Last week, Ryan, along with divers Alan Keller and Brian Nadwidny, leapt from an inflatable boat to search the lake using sonar equipment and their own diving skills..At nearly 60 m deep and roughly four km from shore, the silhouette of a 1928 Essex sedan was identified in the murky water.“We found it in seven minutes, which is extremely rare,” Ryan told the Calgary Sun, adding the dive was done in water with just five meters of visibility.“The lake is slowly giving up its secrets and we’re determined to get there.”As the story goes, a Saskatchewan photographer nearly a century ago drove his car onto the lake’s frozen surface to set up a camera tripod — only for the ice to give way beneath his vehicle, leaving it trapped underwater. Thankfully, he survived.Recently, a tip from a man using side-scan sonar to search for a body led Ryan’s team to the suspected location.“We obviously needed to dive for it, there was no two ways about it,” said Ryan.“Being the first to see this dusty old car is the reason we do it, given all the expense and time away from home,” Ryan explained.The Detroit-built vehicle still sports its Banff National Park pass, which at that time was made of metal, and white Saskatchewan licence plates numbered 48009.“You can see the years have not been good to it,” said Ryan.“We’ll be back out there pretty soon seeing if we can find some more of them.”
