See Giant Marble Crucifix Sunk as Memorial to Lake Michigan's Dead

Carved of Italian white marble, an 11-foot cross with a 5-foot, 5-inch statue of Jesus rests on the floor of Lake Michigan. (Screenshot: YouTube video)

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Resting along with the souls who lost their lives over the years in Lake Michigan shipwrecks is an artifact purposely sunk decades ago to offer comfort: a giant Italian marble crucifix.

You won’t have to dive to the icy depths of the lake to see the 11-foot cross and 5-foot, 5-inch figure of Jesus, which the Wyandotte Superior Marine Club acquired for song half a century ago.

For a limited time Saturday, the cross carved of white Italian marble will be visible through a portal cut in the 4-foot covering of ice, the Lansing State Journal reports.

The monument rests in 22 feet of water about 800 feet from the shore of Little Traverse Bay at Petoskey in the northwest part of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. Viewing hours are from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, weather permitting, on the ice off of Bayfront Park.

The crucifix was originally intended as a monument for the grave of 15-year-old Gerald Schipinski,who had died in a farm accident in Rapson area in 1956. It was damaged during the overseas transport and the family refused to accept it. Shipping it back would have been too expensive, so the church put the cross in an insurance sale.

The Wyandotte group bought it for $50 and spent another $500 on repairs. On Aug. 12, 1962, it was sunk by the Wyandotte group about 1,200 feet off the shore near the U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Sundew.

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The original intent to memorialize Charles Raymond, a Southgate diver, who had drowned, but the group ultimately decided the crucifix should memorialize all who have lost their lives in Lake Michigan.

In the 1980s, divers with the Michigan Skindiving Club brought the cross up from the lake floor for repairs, including the reattachment of a one of Jesus’ arms broken off during the original setting (it was reportedly discovered many years later on the desk of metro Detroit photographer).

It was sunk at the current location in 1986, the year of the first winter viewing.

Since then, about 1,150 curious landlubbers have gingerly walked across the ice to see the sacred icon through the clear, icy waters.

“It’s a very personal event for every single person that looks down through the viewing ports,” said Denny Jessick, who organizes the annual event with Rick Hoig, a fellow diver for the Emmet County Sheriff’s Office.

““We’re not putting any kind of religious aspect to it,” he said. “It’s open to everybody. It’s a unique winter event for everyone to share.”

• Learn more about the history of the crucifix in the video below.