SOLO CANOE PASSAGE WITH TRACES OF SNOW

  

Errett M. Graham (1877-1974)
Land surveyor and County Engineer
paddling his canvas Old Town Canoe.
Circumnavigating Shaw Island,
San Juan Archipelago
on his 94th birthday. 
Photograph in the calm of June
by Babs Cameron,
from the archives of the 
Saltwater People Historical Society©


Passed on to the Friday Harbor Journal was this quote by Emmett Watson previously published by the Seattle-P-I, in 1970:

        "Sometime quite soon residents of San Juan County will say goodbye to Mr. Errett M. Graham, the county engineer. What makes this goodbye rather special is the fact that Mr. Graham, now 92, just retired in May. He always paddled his own canoe into Friday Harbor for the meetings of the Board of County Commissioners–ignoring the ferries. He celebrated his 90th birthday by paddling his canoe around Lopez Island. . ."

And from the handwritten daily diary of the canoe master, Mr. Errett Graham are these words.

20 February 1951:

"Tough Trip

If I had had even a premonition of the difficulties I was fated to encounter on my return trip today, I would either have stayed over or made a very early start. I landed at a homestead just short of Limestone Pt., walked over to the point, and saw I couldn't possibly buck the tide there. The man there said that the tide split at Limestone Pt. and that once around it, I should have a favoring tide. I found a road over which I could portage and got in the water again just south of the white limestone point. I made a few hundred feet along a nice gravel beach to a rocky and forbidding projecting point at its southeasterly end. Attempting to get around this I got in some very rough water shipped several quarts and made absolutely no advance, I'm fact, I lost ground and had to land on a coarse rock beach. I took a long walk down the beach to give the tide or wind time to change and had visions of having to spend the night there. When the whitecaps quieted a bit I refloated the canoe and made another attempt, succeeding this time and heading straight for Brown Island to make the channel crossing before the tide became adverse again. Water was quite rough–but nothing like it was at Limestone Point. Evidently, the tide did not split at that Point as I had been told; passed east of Yellow Island and touched shore in Squaw Bay tired and chilled. There were traces of snow on Lopez. A hot supper and a bath, the house warmed up. O.K., now."

1951 Diary of Errett M. Graham.
Archived in the Shaw Island Historical Museum

DOGFISH OIL

Pacific Dogfish
Courtesy of the Monterey Aquarium

The viscous, malodorous extract of the skin and liver of the dogfish was at the heart of the operation of the Port Townsend, Washington area's nineteenth-century lumber industry. This rancid oil was primarily used to grease the skid roads along which lumbermen transported the harvested logs. Hides tanned with dogfish oil were used as drive belts in sawmill machinery. It was the source of nighttime illumination in the mills, which often operated twenty-four hours a day. The crude but effective lighting fixtures were the kettles, similar to and sometimes adapted from a teakettle, with spouts on two sides. The kettles were filled with foul fuel and wicks let down the spouts were lighted. The fetid odor was intensified by combustion. 

The Klallam and Chimakum extracted the oil for use as a paint base and as a seasoning and cooking agent, though not surprisingly the slightly less rank seal or whale oils were favored for edibles. Before extraction caps were established by whites, they traded with the Natives for the oil. Extraction was left to the Native women, who collected the dogfish in discarded dugouts and crushed the carcasses by climbing into the canoes and trampling them. When the fish were sufficiently squashed, the women added saltwater, allowing the mixture to decompose for days or weeks. The oil rose to the top of the noisome brew and was skimmed off. Whites did not improve much on the extraction procedure. They introduced iron-bottomed wooden troughs instead of canoes so a few could be kindled beneath to hasten the process.

Several factors in the mid-1880s marked the beginning of the end for the dogfish industry. Petroleum products, which cost less and were more efficient, became readily available. Skid roads were being phased out in favor of "lokies" (locomotives,) steam donkeys, and logging carts on rails. Carbon arc lighting, a novelty ten years earlier, was common in sawmills by the decade's end. Finally, rubberized belts were introduced into the more modern sawmills, replacing animal hides. Like the stench it created, however, the industry was tenacious, and as late as 1890, fifty thousand 
gallons of oil were produced in Washington plants.
Above essay: "City of Dreams," editor Peter Simpson. Bay Press, Port Townsend, WA. 1986.

And later still...

=======

"In 1906, Bruce Willis was in the port of
Friday Harbor, in his auxiliary sloop,
AILSA, en route to Griffin Bay to fish.
 He sold 30 gallons of dogfish oil here,  
though he says this is not as good a price,
as Anacortes. It brings ten cents more
per gallon there, the prices 
here only being .25 cents."
The San Juan Islander 2 Mar. 1906.

Photo scan from Jane Barfoot Hodde, 
a friend and neighbor of the Willis family
of Olga-Doe Bay, Orcas Island, WA.

A 1907 wanted ad in the 
San Juan Islander newspaper 
from the well-known Robert Moran, 
a new resident of Orcas Island.

=============

" The U and I, Capt. G.I. Peterson of Mitchell Bay was in port the first of the week on her way to Richardson, where Mr. Peterson will dispose of a barrel of dogfish oil to Hodgson & Graham. He is a veteran fisherman and enjoys the life. Each season he goes to Cape Flattery, and invariably makes good. Even last year, when so many barely paid for the gasoline they burned, the captain netted a fair sum. The U and I was specially built for him, after his own specifications and with her, he ventures further out than most boats and stays out in all kinds of weather. "

The San Juan Islander. Friday Harbor, WA. 14 March 1913.

CURIOSITIES ON RUGGED BLAKELY ISLAND in 1961

BLAKELY ISLAND,
SAN JUAN ARCHIPELAGO,
WASHINGTON
detail from USCGS #6300
Click image to enlarge;
not up to date for navigation.

Blakely Island,
San Juan Archipelago, WA.
Original postcard published by the 
Pacific Aerial Survey
Ca. 1930 to 1940.
Click image to enlarge.
From the archives of the 
Saltwater People Historical Society©

"Where homesteaders cleared fields amid the dense vegetation of Blakely Island in the San Juan Islands and loggers hewed timber for a sawmill on Thatcher Bay, strange things have come to pass.

        Floyd Johnson's aviation-and-yachting estates' development, consisting of 38 summer homes, some of startingly advanced design, rose on the north shore of the 4,700-acre island. Almost all of the remainder, by arrangement with a mill company on the mainland, has become a perpetual tree farm.
        Decaying log buildings left by the earlier residents are regarded as picturesque curiosities, to be visited by Jeep, the characteristic vehicle encountered on Blakely's rugged roads. Nearly every home has one.
        Johnson's airfield and improvements were commenced in 1956 and each winter he added more buildings. Some of the estate owners use their private planes.
        Except for the colony at the north end, Blakely has gone back to its natural state, with 2,500 deer roaming the woods, mink, muskrat, beaver, and land otters living near the two lakes; bald eagles, doves, goldfinches, woodpeckers, and swarms of other birds flitting among the trees.
        Johnson's enterprise controls all but a federal government lighthouse reservation and two other tracts. Seven permanent families live on Blakely, employed mostly in the development. Houses and boats are constructed in slack seasons. Children are taken across to Orcas Island by private boat to attend school. In rough weather, they are flown across.
        One of the earliest mentions of inhabitants on Blakely was in the 1870 census, which listed the sole occupant as Paul K. Hubbs Jr. and his then-wife, Sasha (he had several.) Hubbs, a leading figure in the San Juan 'Pig War,' had been granted 'the exclusive privilege to an island about five square miles' (the size was considerably under-rated) and grazed 400 sheep on it.
        Ten years later, when the next census was taken, Hubbs was temporarily without a wife; his occupation was given as fishing.
        By that time, there were other settlers. E.C. Gillette surveyed land for the Americans on San Juan before the 'Pig War', went to Blakely in 1874, and raised sheep on the southeast side. He was the first San Juan County surveyor and later became county school superintendent.
        H.W. Whitener moved to the northwest side of the island from Samish Island in the early 1870s. He was elected sheriff of San Juan County.
        William H. Viereck and a partner named Coffelt, of Orcas Island, started a sawmill on Thatcher Bay; in 1889, Theodore W. S. Spencer deputy customs collector at Roche Harbor, moved his family from Lopez to a homestead at Spencer Lake. He was attracted by the possibilities of water power, as the outlet was through a steep gulch. In 1892, he purchased the mill and box factory, which the family operated almost continuously until 1945.
        Ruins of the mill, wharf, boathouse, post office, commissary, and several dwellings of the mill community can be seen at the head of Thatcher Bay (1961.)
        Blakely has a log schoolhouse, constructed in the 1880s and used continuously until 1940. Johnson hopes to restore it.
         A teacher at the school, R.H. Straub, was the central figure in San Juan County's most celebrated criminal case, resulting in the only hanging in its history.
        Ray Spencer, now of Spencer Spit, Lopez Island, who spent the greater part of his life on Blakely, said Straub bought the Gillette place, which joined the homestead of Mrs. Pauline Burns, extending inland from the southwest side of the island. Mrs. Burns was the wife of a railroad man who was away most of the time.
        August 30, 1895, her brother, Leon Lanterman, and their half-brother, Ralph W. Blythe, went from Decauter to dig her potato crop. In the next field, Irving Parberry, a youth of 17 whose family was homesteading near Horseshoe Lake, was noisily at work singing and whistling, seeming determined to attract attention. As Straub had appeared, Lanterman, Blythe, and Mrs. Burns became suspicious.
        Straub was a Canadian, about 45, who had been in San Juan County on and off since 1872. About three years earlier, it was suspected that he was stripping the small freight steamship, J.C. BRITAIN after it was stranded at Bell Rock. Suspicious neighbors followed him to Blakely Island, where he pulled a rifle from his boat and threatened them.
         Hard feelings arose from this incident and both Mrs. Spencer and Mrs. Burns were school board members who opposed retaining Straub as teacher.
         Mrs. Burns feared Straub's intentions as he appeared near the potato field. Lanterman walked over to the fence on the pretext of talking with Parberry about land clearing. The boy's replies were abusive and Blythe, hearing the shouting, went to investigate. Parberry had both an ax and a rifle and Blythe arrived in time to see the youth strike Lanterman with the former weapon.
         At that instant, Straub came out of hiding, leaped on a log, cursed Lanterman, and fired at him. He turned on Blythe, but the latter dropped and the bullet passed over him. Blythe raced to the Burns house for a weapon and Straub, still firing, went after Mrs. Burns. A bullet entered her shoulder and another whizzed past her ear.
        By the time Blythe found a weapon, the two assailants had disappeared, but not until Straub shot twice more at Lanterman, killing him.
        Mrs. Burns ran a mile through the timber to the Spencer home and gave the alarm. She was taken by the Spencers in a small boat to her parent's home and Blythe was picked up on the way.
        Straub fled to Whatcom County and Parberry to another part of the San Juans. Both were tracked down, Sheriff Newton Jones serving a warrant on Straub 2 October.
        Lanterman was buried on Lopez, 1 September.
        Parberry, when captured, insisted that Straub had forced him at the point of a revolver to participate in the attack.
        At a preliminary hearing in Friday Harbor, several residents of Decatur and Lopez Islands openly threatened to lynch Straub if they could get their hands on him.
        The case went to trial in October. Lacking a fitting room in the San Juan County courthouse, the authorities arranged for the use of the ground floor of Friday Harbor's Odd Fellows Hall. The judge was seated on the stage and the main floor was roped off to separate the jury from witnesses and spectators. There was no room to which the jurors could retire in intermissions.
        Straub had been locked in the jail in Whatcom until the day of the trial. He moved for a change of venue, contending he would not receive fair treatment in San Juan County because of strong prejudice had been created by Mr. Dillon's funeral sermon.
         Change of venue was denied,, and the trial proceeded. Parberry turned state's evidence and the charge against him was dismissed.
         Edward Ambler, one of the state's witnesses, created a diversion by eavesdropping under the stage beneath the witness chair. The attorney for the defense routed him out.
         The jury was hung for seven hours because two members opposed capital punishment and could not agree with the rest as to the degree of murder. At length, on 26 October, the prisoner was found guilty in the first degree and sentenced to execution on 13 November.
         Straub appealed, so back he went to the Whatcom jail. A long wait was in store for him, during which he 'got religion.'
        It was more than a year, 8 December 1896, before the Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the District Court. The hanging was set for 26 March 1897. Straub gained another respite, until 22 April; his sister made a last-minute personal appeal to Governor Rogers to save Straub from the gallows, which Sheriff Jones had erected inside a 12 x 15-foot enclosure at one end of the jail. Islanders were ashamed of what was about to happen, and the judge offered a 15-foot-high fence built around the gallows.
        About 20 persons were admitted to the hanging. The sheriff delayed the fatal hour Straub asked if there was anything he wished to say, spoke in calm tones for ten minutes. He declared that if nothing but the truth had been told, he would not have been condemned. He thanked Salvation Army friends for converting him while he was in jail and said since then he had felt better than in all his life.
        Sheriff Newton Jones carried out his unpleasant task and, it is said, was so upset by the execution, that he shortly afterward had a nervous breakdown.
        No one lives today on either the Burns or the Lanterman property. The buildings and fences have disappeared on the former land. The Lanterman house on Decatur was burned a few years ago.

Words by historian Lucile McDonald for The Seattle Times published,
13 August 1961.

JOHN GRAHAM JR and HIS YEARS with YACHT MARUFFA

 

S. V. MARUFFA,

Skipper John Graham Jr 
and crew, homeport of 
Seattle, WA.
Possibly in 1947, the year of the  
International Swiftsure Race.
Click image to enlarge.
Original photograph by 
Ray Krantz, Seattle, WA. 
Thank you Heather Graham.

"MARUFFA, from her debut in 1947, stamped her personality on Swiftsure. During the middle fifties, however, she really came into her own. MARUFFA stole the show, one way or another, no matter who, or what the challenge. And her list of laurels grew. 

Humphrey Golby comments:

'Certainly one of the outstanding yachts that helped Swiftsure become a recognized international sailing event was John Graham's MARUFFA. She first came to Swiftsure in 1947, and even in this, her maiden race, she was first boat home. For the next 16 years, she was the public's choice; the photographer's joy; and the true queen of the fleet. Her unparalleled Swiftsure record speaks for itself.

She was the first boat home in at least six if not seven of her starts. However, since the City of Victoria Trophy was presented to PIYA in 1956, MARUFFA has won it four times. It took John Graham 10 years, from 1947 to 1957, to win the Swiftsure Trophy so many times, MARUFFA boiled through the race with every rag of sail she could carry, driving for the finish line in all-out last-ditch effort to save her time on the fleet. Sometimes, she only lost by a minute or two, and once, only by seconds.

Many times a winner in AA Class, only once in her career did she fail to finish, and that was the race of the great calm in 1958 when 23 yachts finally gave up and powered home.

MARUFFA was built in 1936 in the Pendleton Yard in Wiscasset, Maine. She was designed by Phil Phodes and meticulously built to the special order of Henry Babson. Commissioned and sailed on the Great Lakes for three years, she made quite a name for herself in Mackinac and other major events. During the war years, 1943-1946, MARUFFA was put into storage, and at the war's end, was sold to John Graham. John recalls that the former owner had two paid hands, and kept them steadily at work on the boat for three years. When Graham saw her, she was gleaming like a concert grand. One look closed the sale. MARUFFA went to Annapolis for a short time before her proud new owner rounded up a crew to sail her to Seattle. 

In his design, Phil Rhodes, had produced a handsome wholesome boat, beautifully balanced, capable of holding her own on every point of sail. MARUFFA was at her best in light to medium winds, but even when it blew hard, she could snug down and keep pace. Her real strength was the ability to run, even in the lightest airs. So many times, I have observed MARUFFA quietly sail away from the fleet on the downwind leg. This great offwind speed once planted her third across the line into Hawaii, a performance that enabled her to beat all but two of the A Class boats, boat for boat, even though she was racing in B Class. In any consideration of MARUFFA's marvelous Swiftsure years, we have to remember that throughout all those years, she was sailed by John Graham and a crack crew.

John Graham was a sailing competitor, even as a young boy, coming to Victoria in 1919 to sail on the Seattle team against Royal Victoria dinghies. The Seattle-ites used Winslow Kittens, which were much faster than the local boats. John had the best sailing teachers that anyone could ask for. He was a member of Ted Geary's SIR TOM crew, the famous R boat that dominated the Pacific Coast for so many years. Ted Geary was an acknowledged master of the art of sailing. He picked John to skipper the boat when he could not be on board. From R boats to Star boats, John sailed and won. He was a fierce competitor, an intuitive tactician, and he never quit. When Ray Cooke built CIRCE and raced her in the 1934 Swiftsure, John Graham was aboard as sailing master. He sailed on CIRCE in all her early Swiftsures. Here again, he had, in Ray Cooke, the best teacher in the business. After WW II, John bought MARUFFA, starting her Swiftsure saga in 1947. 

Swiftsure records are filled with the exploits of this great yacht. Let me relate two incidents showing how hard the skipper and crew worked for their laurels. At first light, the escort tug picked up MARUFFA close in under the land off Neah Bay. She had rounded the Lightship about midnight and had led the pack on the homeward run. The entrance to the Straits was glassy calm. Boats out in the stream were rolling listlessly without steerageway. John had worked MARUFFA right inshore where the first morning thermals created the slightest breeze. As the tug followed her, we saw a classic example of how a fantastic skipper can keep even a big boat moving under almost impossible conditions. The wind was shifting back and forth, from the merest offshore zephyr to a few faint puffs from the southwest as the westerly sought to become established. In each of these shifts, from slightly ahead of abeam to dead astern, John had the crew alternate with a light drifter for the offshore puffs, returning to the spinnaker when the westerly caught up. What was happening was simple. When the westerly drove MARUFFA ahead, she promptly sailed out of the following wind. As quickly as she nosed out of the westerly, she slid forward into the offshore breeze, faint as it might be. For each of these alternating conditions, John had his crew down spinnaker as soon as the westerly quit, and hoist a gossamer drifter to take advantage of the offshore puffs. As we watched, MARUFFA sent through this drill 12 or 15 times. The marvel of it was that John Graham kept MARUFFA moving while others sat and waited for the morning westerly. When the wind did finally make up, MARUFFA had gained at least an additional mile on her listless rivals.

The second incident unfolded right at the finishing line. The late afternoon westerly was unusually fresh in 1955 as MARUFFA charged through Race Passage with a substantial lead. Skipper Graham had his biggest spinnaker up, and MARUFFA made a glorious picture as she surged forward at breakneck speed. Just off Work Point, and less than 1,000 yards from the finish, a sudden gust off the land hit MARUFFA, sending her reeling, but she did not broach. In seconds, she seemed to recover, when suddenly her mast snapped at the upper spreader. The great spinnaker sagged in confusion on the foredeck, while the main hung like a broken wing. Thousands of spectators had gathered to watch her finish. An audible gasp went up as tragedy struck. The committee had timed her nearest rivals through the Race when there was a chance that MARUFFA would save her time and win it all. Now these precious minutes ticked away as MARUFFA's hopes for the Swiftsure Trophy slipped from her grasp, once more. Even then, MARUFFA didn't quite. John swung her round with the mizzen, and sailed her BACKWARDS across the line! The City of Victoria Trophy for first boat to finish was hers again. And what a finish it was.'

MARUFFA left the Pacific Northwest to engage in research projects sailing out of Woods Hole Marine Biological Station. For her day and time, MARUFFA  was an outstanding yacht, ahead of her time in design, faultlessly built, and meticulously maintained. She is a living legend. This chapter cannot end without listing MARUFFA's principal dimensions. She was 67.5' x exclusive of the bowsprit. Waterline L 49.7' x 15' B x  8' 6" D. 

The MARUFFA story has a sad postscript. On Sunday 4 March 1979, she went aground and became a total loss while on a research mission in South New Zealand waters. The tragedy occurred while en route from Dunedin to Stewart Island with a young American crew guiding her. Skipper Steven Sewell decided to turn back when he met rough seas off the southland coast. During the turning manoeuvre, the main backstay parted. After making temporary repairs he set his course for Tuatuku Bay Lighthouse. However, MAURFFA's great speed carried her in too close before the order to alter course could be carried out. In the confusion, those vital seconds proved fatal. MARUFFA drove hard aground. Within minutes she began to break up in the heavy seas, a sad end to a heritage yacht that still had meant useful years of service.

In the process of abandoning ship, one of the young crewmen caught his leg between the topside and the rocks, severing it below the knee in one of the powerful serges. A female crew member lost her thumb, but thankfully no lives were lost."

Source: SWIFTSURE, the First Fifty Years.

Humphrey Golby and Shirley Hewitt. Edited by Ed Gould. Published by Lightship Press Limited, Victoria, B.C., Canada. 1980.