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Roche Harbor, San Juan Archipelago, WA. The Lime Transport moored to load barrels. Click image to enlarge. Original gelatin-silver photographs from the Saltwater People Historical Society© |
June Burn
Bellingham Herald, November 1929
"Five years ago and Capt. Wirstrom retired from the sea. He had sailed his last ship, kept his last watch, and tooted his last whistle in a pea-soup fog. He was going to farm for the rest of his life and take things easy far from the mad winds and the merciless reefs of rock out where no gentlemanly reef ought to be.
Today, as you read this, Captain Wirstrom is probably down in Coos Bay, having navigated a boatload of lime rock from Roche Harbor, WA, to the paper mills of Empire City. For, when the call came, the old mariner found he could not resist it and so he sits again in what seems to me a lonely state in his captain's quarters aft, on the big Roche Harbor Lime Transport.
On the northern tip of San Juan Island, two companies dig lime from hills full of the purest lime deposit in the world, they say. Moreover, there is said to be enough lime in those hills to last more than a century with both companies going for all they are worth. (It is my private opinion that in a hundred years they will have dug up the whole island at the rate they are going now.
Bellingham Herald, November 1929
"Five years ago and Capt. Wirstrom retired from the sea. He had sailed his last ship, kept his last watch, and tooted his last whistle in a pea-soup fog. He was going to farm for the rest of his life and take things easy far from the mad winds and the merciless reefs of rock out where no gentlemanly reef ought to be.
Today, as you read this, Captain Wirstrom is probably down in Coos Bay, having navigated a boatload of lime rock from Roche Harbor, WA, to the paper mills of Empire City. For, when the call came, the old mariner found he could not resist it and so he sits again in what seems to me a lonely state in his captain's quarters aft, on the big Roche Harbor Lime Transport.
On the northern tip of San Juan Island, two companies dig lime from hills full of the purest lime deposit in the world, they say. Moreover, there is said to be enough lime in those hills to last more than a century with both companies going for all they are worth. (It is my private opinion that in a hundred years they will have dug up the whole island at the rate they are going now.
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Orcas Lime Company Click image to enlarge. "The Orcas Lime Co worked a small quarry just a few hundred yards south of the Roche Harbor deposit. It supplied its single kiln with limestone by means of rail carts pushed along on top of a long trestle. That plant and dock were located on narrow Mosquito Pass, also served by Puget Sound Freight Line boats. When the quarry rock finally gave out in the mid-30s, this trim little competitor gave up the ghost and the land became a sheep ranch." Text from the Journal Jan. 2003. Author unknown. Roche Harbor, San Juan Island, WA. Original gelatin-silver photograph from the archives of the Saltwater People Historical Society© |
And against the curving hill slopes behind one of the prettier harbors in the world, Roche Harbor Lime Company digs and burns, and barrels are loaded on ships for places far and near.
The fine long dock at Roche Harbor is piled with barrels upon barrels, four deep, all filled with lime ready for the boats. Sacks upon sacks of lime are stacked behind the barrels. The daily capacity of the works is 1,500 barrels.
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Antique copper stencils once used to inscribe lime barrels shipping out to these destinations from Roche Harbor Lime Co. Now archived at the San Juan Island Historical Museum. Stop by during their open hours and visit their wonderful effort highlighting history of San Juan Island, San Juan Archipelago, Washington. |
Boats come and go, bringing in thousands of cords of wood to Roche Harbor, going out with tons and tons of lime from Roche Harbor. The little bay is lively with boats.
Ten years ago we helped to dig rock out of those hills. That is, Farrar broke the rock and I watched him! I used to walk up the Clematis-covered banks, over the tiny railway to the high-walled quarries to watch the men with their big sledge hammers cracking the boulders, breaking off one corner after another, sometimes finding themselves faced with an almost round, unbreakable rock at the end if they weren't skilled. The game was to break them so that there would always be another angle left. Farrar used to say there was poetry in watching the rocks come down after the blast, in selecting one's boulder to conquer with sledge and muscle, in breaking it so skillfully that the last bit was so full of sharp angles as the original boulder had been.
The Clematis on those banks was planted forty-three years ago on the birthday of Mr. McMillin's son. The original plant is now a hoary old vine several inches thick, crawling all over the place. And the progeny of that vine softens every nook and cranny of the hill. It is chiefly responsible for the beauty of the place as one comes in by boat.
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Hotel de Haro Roche Harbor, San Juan Archipelago, WA. |
Against the dark hill rising up from the harbor on the left, as one enters, are the white cottages of the laborers, the combination church and schoolhouse, with its spire, the vine-covered hotel, the Clematis banks, and the big flower garden coming down to the water's edge. The effect is incomparably lovely. If there were no lime there at all, and no industry, the dainty small harbor would still be a village for the sheer beauty of the location.
But to get back to Captain Wirstrom: Several years ago the lime company bought a big sailing boat––a beautiful thing she is, with flowing robes riding her prow. For two or three years, the long slender six-masted schooner sat still in the harbor. She too has retired, maybe. Thought to ride the calm waters of a picturesque harbor for the rest of her days. But now she is to be used again. Stripped of three of her masts, part of them used now as cargo booms, she will haul lime rock down the coast to the new paper mills at Empire City in Coos Bay.
La Escocesa (Scotch Maid) was built in 1868 in Dundee, Scotland. She ran as a steamship between England and India. Later her name was changed to Coalinga and she was used in the carrying trade, whatever that means. Freight, I suppose. Finally, the Alaska Packers bought her, changed her name once more to Star of Chile, and used her as a sort of floating cannery in Alaska. Now she is the Roche Harbor Lime Transport barge and once more a "carrier" of things.
Of iron her hull--thick plates of Swedish iron--and of her iron spirit, else she would never have lived out the seas which have broken over her in every sea in the world. And perhaps there is some iron in the spirit of her new captain that he comes from retirement to pilot a "barge." She doesn't look like a barge, certainly, with her trim lines and the three masts rising so fine and tall. But she is to be towed, sailing only when there is sufficient wind to make the use of her small canvas, worthwhile, and so she must now be called a barge, though her captain doesn't like it.
Here comes my boat to take me to another island! I had thought to have dinner in the attractive hotel here and the soft-voiced Japanese boy is just serving the salad, but I must run. There will be a sunset on the channel as we chug across the island's dark shadow against the bright waters. See you tomorrow. June. "
Of iron her hull--thick plates of Swedish iron--and of her iron spirit, else she would never have lived out the seas which have broken over her in every sea in the world. And perhaps there is some iron in the spirit of her new captain that he comes from retirement to pilot a "barge." She doesn't look like a barge, certainly, with her trim lines and the three masts rising so fine and tall. But she is to be towed, sailing only when there is sufficient wind to make the use of her small canvas, worthwhile, and so she must now be called a barge, though her captain doesn't like it.
Here comes my boat to take me to another island! I had thought to have dinner in the attractive hotel here and the soft-voiced Japanese boy is just serving the salad, but I must run. There will be a sunset on the channel as we chug across the island's dark shadow against the bright waters. See you tomorrow. June. "
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