❖ HOME WITH FURS, IVORY, & WHALEBONE

PATTERSON
Wooden oil screw 224220
Launched in 1884 for a US Coast & Geodetic Survey ship.
Here she is in service as an Arctic Trader
Photo from the archives of the S.P.H.S.©

September 1938:

"ARCTIC TRADER ENDS HER FIRST TRIP FOR A NEW LINE
      With a cargo of furs, ivory, curios, and strange Eskimo ceremonial apparel, the motorship PATTERSON was in Seattle yesterday after a trading cruise to the Arctic. 
      After an eventful voyage to Point Barrow, the famous Arctic trader PATTERSON was in Seattle with a cargo obtained from Eskimos who swarmed out to meet the vessel in skin boats as she approached their villages on the far-flung coast of Northern Alaska.
      The two-master, of a picturesque rig and large crow's nest, used when she was operated as a whaler, was dogged by heavy weather during most of her cruise along the Arctic Coast.
      At Wainwright, on the northbound voyage, her master, Capt. Walter Tinn, a veteran of the northern seas, became seriously ill and Capt. A.J. Hartland, chief officer, took command of the vessel. At Nome, Capt. Tinn was placed in a hospital and later brought to Seattle in the Alaska Steamship Co liner DENALI, which was returning from a cruise to Arctic Siberia. 
      The cargo of the PATTERSON included Eskimo ceremonial maks, mukluks, bows and arrows, spears, snowshoes, carved ivory, native baskets, Eskimo combs, fossil ivory, parkas, miniature kayaks, and a bright red reindeer coat. 
      The PATTERSON was at Point Barrow three days putting ashore 400 tons of supplies needed for the long winter. There was much ice in the roadstead and along the shore. She was the only commercial vessel to call at Point Barrow this year. 
      With her arrival in Seattle, the PATTERSON completed her first voyage for Motorship Patterson, Inc, a new company organized to operate the trader. She was purchased recently in San Francisco from Capt. C. T. Pedersen, a veteran of the Far North.
      Officers of the new company are Charles Gilkey, president; Walter Gilkey, vice president; George T. Stickney, secretary-treasurer, and Elmer Leader, assistant secretary-treasurer."
Above text: Seattle Times news clip. September 1938.

1883: Ordered at the yard of James D. Leary, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Cost: $100,000.
Installed Power: Cross compound vertical steam engine, cylinders 17 and 31 inches x 28-inch stroke, 215 HP, replaced by 325 HP diesel in 1924.
Propulsion: 8-ft screw.
Sail Plan: Barkentine
Boats & landing craft carried: 7
Crew: 12-13 officers, 40-46 crewmen.

1884, 15 January: Launched and named for Carlile P. Patterson, Superintendent of the US Coast and Geodetic Survey. 
1918: Renamed FORWARD and transferred to US Navy for a patrol ship during last months of WW I.
1919: Sold back to the US Coast & Geodetic Survey because she was no longer strong enough for offshore use and regained her original name. She was out of service for several years and finally sold by WA tug & Barge Co to C.K. West of Portland.
1925-1937: Owned by Northern Whaling & Trading Co. When the motor ship PATTERSON arrived in San Francisco in 1931, with Capt. C. T. Pedersen in command, her cargo of white fox, ivory, and whalebone was valued at $300,000. (1931 prices.)
1937-1938: Sold to Alaska Patterson Co.

MOTORSHIP PATTERSON
224220
Captain H.H. Bune, Seattle, WA.
Wrecked 11 December 1938
Near Cape Fairweather, AK.
Photo from the archives of the S.P.H.S.©

1938, December 11:   
"The most serious loss of life during 1938 resulted from the stranding of motorship PATTERSON, owned by Alaska Patterson, Inc. on the surf-lashed shore at Cape Fairweather, near Sea Otter Creek, Gulf of Alaska. Capt. Gustaf F. Swanson, first mate, was washed overboard and lost trying to launch a lifeboat. James Moore, winchman, was drowned in a swollen creek while attempting to rig a lifeline to get the crew ashore. The other 18 survivors were marooned on the rugged shore for some time, supplies were dropped to them by air. 
      Sheldon Simmons, "mercy flier" rescued two crew who arrived in Seattle in time for Christmas. Two USN planes from Sitka flew out seven crew and USCG HAIDA the remaining men. Both groups were rescued at Lituya Bay where the men hiked 30 miles through storms with guide Nels Ludwinson, left by Simmons' plane. Ludwinson was a local trapper who had been jailed for drunkenness and let out early for the job. 
The vessel had been bound from Kodiak for Seattle, was pounded to pieces in the surf."
Wreck notes from the N.Y. Times published 25 December 1938 
H.W. McCurdy's Marine History of the PNW. Newell, Gordon, editor. 

❖ Schooner C.S. HOLMES towing in with Furs, Ivory and Fossils, Eighty Years Ago ❖

Schooner C. S. HOLMES,
Captain John Backland,
Towing into Port of Seattle from the Arctic.
Photograph dated, September 1935.
Photographer unknown.
Original from the archives of S.P.H.S.©

"Laden with a cargo of furs, ivory and whalebone, as well as museum pieces, including bird eggs, and fossil remains, the veteran trading schooner, C. S. HOLMES arrives home. The vessel was the sole source of supplies and contact with the outside world for natives and trappers along the bleak Alaskan coast." 

Text from the Seattle Times, 9/1935 

Trading Vessel of the Arctic,
C.S. HOLMES.
Icebound off the Northern tip of Alaska until the
US Dept of Indian Affairs Motorship
NORTH STAR towed the HOLMES
100 miles through the ice to Pt. Barrow, where
both vessels discharged cargoes of winter
supplies for the inhabitants of that town.
Photo back stamped 28 September 1933.
Original photo from the archives of the S.P.H.S.©

❖ RACE from ALASKA ❖ with Schooner NANUK

As the R2AK sailors out of Port Townsend, WA, near the finish of the Race to Alaska, they take a chance to survive the challenging coast of British Columbia, without using a motor, and perhaps taking home the $10,000 prize. We salute the excitement they have showered on the world of sailing. 

    This is a post of another coastal race that earned the master no glory but a large sum. From the archives:

Schooner NANUK
(ex-OTTILLIE FJORD)
Home from Alaska, 16 October 1925.
Blt by Hans D. Bendixsen at Fairhaven, CA.
Original photo by Cleve and Acme
from archives of Saltwater People Historical Society.©

Captain C. T. Pederson,
master NANUK
16 October 1925, San Francisco.
Pederson was one of the last, if not the last of the 19th c.
Arctic whalers, fur traders, and navigators.
Original photo from the archives of the
Saltwater People Historical Society. ©

Auxiliary schooner NANUK, winner of the annual fur-traders race between Alaska and San Francisco.
      During this time period, NANUK was owned and skippered by Capt. C. T. Pederson, whose wife always sailed along with him. His 1925 cargo was worth $270,000––the largest cargo of furs ever brought to San Francisco to date, it was said. (That sum converts to c. $3,650,000 for today's date.)

1927: The NANUK was sold to the well-known Olaf Swenson of Swenson Fur Trading Co of Seattle. He was one of the world's largest dealers in furs. 

1933: Nanuk was purchased by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for filming the Eskimo with Capt. James A. Hersey in command.

"Making a Movie in the Far North",
from the NANUK, 1933.

The upper photo shows the expedition 

approaching a walrus on an ice pack.

Original photo from the archives of the S.P.H.S.©

NANUK is cruising northern waters to find   
territory for the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer filming 

of the hunting and drama scenes.  

The small and not particularly comfortable vessel 
carried fifty tons of general equipment, 

including heating and food for the men
 during their nine-month stay in AK.
"Eskimo," after the novel of the same name 

by Peter Freuchen,
was directed by W.S. Van Dyke, 

remembered for "White Shadows 
in South Seas" and "Trader Horn."
Original photos, dated 1933, from the 

archives of Saltwater People Historical Society.©

Biblio: Movie reference and Swenson purchase data from H. W. McCurdy's Marine History of the PNW, edited by Gordon Newell.

❖ SCHOONER C. S. HOLMES ❖

"News photo scoops these days [1952] usually suggest wire-photos flashed over sea and land and swift airplanes rushing prints of sensational events from city to city, but the first filing of explorer Roald Amundsen's history-making flight over the North Pole in 1926 came to Seattle by sailing ship.
      The newspapers had been full of stories of the top-of-the-world voyage of the dirigible NORGE from King's Bay, Spitzbergen, to Teller, AK, carrying Amundsen, Lincoln Ellsworth, and their daring crew of North Pole explorers. I was intensely interested in the passage of the ship-of-the-air over the top-of-the-world but had no idea I would have a part in the stories of the flight told in pictures.
   

Schooner C.S. HOLMES
framed print donated by Miles McCoy.
Saltwater People Historical Archives.

One summer afternoon in 1926 as I wended my way up the Seattle waterfront to meet the romantic old sailing schooner C. S. HOLMES, I anticipated a pleasant chat with her master, Capt. John Backland Sr., and the story of a trading cruise to the Arctic Coast of AK. As I climbed aboard the HOLMES, I was given a warm greeting by the bearded skipper of the trim four-master. He introduced me to a stocky young Norwegian who spoke very little English.
      Capt. Backland, to my astonishment, explained that the young fellow, who joined the C. S. HOLMES at Teller, AK, had been the photographer of the NORGE during the ship-of-the-air's voyage over the North Pole and had the film of numerous shots taken during the flight. He wished to buy some cigarettes and use a telephone. Would I help him?
      I realized that the young Norwegian had in an important-looking black case, a part of his luggage, a great world-wide news picture scoop and I was not long in warming up to him. I would be very glad to assist the visitor to our shores, the first to use the top-of-the-world route, I told Capt. Backland.
      When we reached the shoreside end of the dock house at Pier 5, where the HOLMES was moored, I saw a news hawk of the rival sheet heading for the vessel.
      Determined not to allow my guest with the first pictures of the NORGE flight to fall into his hands, I quickly explained as best I could that I was sorry, but there were no phones nor cigarettes on the central waterfront and to comply with his wishes, I must take him to a dock quite a distance north.
      We had some heavy luggage to carry but succeeded in reaching Pier 14, where we found a phone and I called a taxicab. I told my friend that the cigarettes and the telephone service were better uptown.
      It was late afternoon when we reached the newsroom of my paper and I explained that my guest had the first pictures of the Amundsen flight over the North Pole. We were not long making a deal with the young Norwegian. He accepted our offer of a guarantee of one hundred dollars if the films developed satisfactorily. We took the films to our staff photographers who accomplished wonders in producing a score of sensational pictures in the Saturday editions and had another spread Sunday morning. During the final conferences, the young Norwegian kept watching me with a puzzled expression on his face. Then he said, "'did you forget about the cigarettes and where can I use a telephone?"

C.S. HOLMES
A gift from W. E. Evans.
Original photo from the archives of the S.P.H.S.©

      Because of that news-picture beat, I have always had a warm spot in my heart for the famous old sailing schooner C. S. HOLMES, that went to her doom on the BC coast while being towed from Zeballos to Port Alberni, BC. She was serving as a lowly barge when lost. The HOLMES was carried ashore and smashed against the rocks when the towline parted. She was pounded into four pieces by the fury of the gale.
      Of the Arctic traders that threaded their way through ice floes to little settlements near the top of the world, the HOLMES was one of the most widely known. For more than 30 years, she operated from Seattle to Point Barrow and native villages in the Far North.
     

Native Alaskans skinning seals
for trading with the sailing ships, as referenced
in this article. Sad but true.
Original photo from the archives of the
Saltwater People Historical Society©

 Each spring the HOLMES would tow to Cape Flattery and spread her sails to the winds of the North Pacific, laden with cargo that was traded for furs obtained by Alaskan natives in the North land's wilderness.
      Built in 1893 in Port Blakely, the vessel was named for the late C. S. HOLMES, one of the original owners of the Port Blakely Mill Co. Mr. Holmes later lived in San Francisco where he was a partner in the firm of Renton & Holmes.
      The trim four-master was constructed in the Hall Brothers' Shipyards, the predecessor of the Winslow Marine Railway & Shipbuilding Co. That was when Benjamin Harrison was president, and four years before the gold ship PORTLAND arrived from AK with her Klondyke-treasure cargo.
      The HOLMES was operated by the late Capt. John Backland Sr., and until WWII forced her into retirement, by his son, Capt. John Backland, Jr.
      The Arctic trade of the Backlands' was one of the oldest shipping enterprises in Seattle. It was established in 1906 when the late Capt. Backland Sr., purchased a half interest in the sailing schooner VOLANTE, and then acquired the sailing schooner TRANSIT in 1908.
      Captain Backland, Sr,  took the TRANSIT into the Arctic every season from that time until she was lost in the ice off Point Barrow in 1913. Then he purchased the C. S. HOLMES. (For a Saltwater People post with more on the TRANSIT and her builder click here.)
      Capt. John Backland Sr., as I remember him, was a tall, dignified, mustached master mariner, who was very religious. Born in Sweden, he became a naturalized British subject and sailed as master of English ships between London, Australia, and New Zealand.
      Capt. Backland was married in London and came to Seattle from the British port in 1906. Three years later, he became an American citizen. He was succeeded as head of the C . S. Holmes Shipping Co by his son, who made many voyages with his father and had a remarkable linguistic ability to trade with the Eskimos.
      Capt. John Backland Jr., with his intimate knowledge of the ice-choked Arctic seas, became a Navy pilot, and served in that capacity with Barex, the Navy's annual supply expedition from Seattle to Point Barrow, farthest north settlement under the American flag.
      The elder Backland died in 1928, after being in the Arctic trade 21 years.
      The HOLMES was requisitioned by the Army and converted into a barge in the plant of the Winslow Marine Railway & Shipbuilding Co. She was shorn of her towering masts and new deck houses for officers and crew. The vessel was used by the Army in transporting cargo on Puget Sound during the war and then sold to a shipbroker. Many on the waterfront thought the HOLMES should have been spared, that other vessels were more suitable for conversion into a barge because of the old windjammer's age, but war means waste and destruction and the HOLMES became a casualty of the struggle."
Calkins, R. H. "Skipper". High Tide; Seattle, Marine Digest Publishing, 1952.