MEN AND SHIPS OF THE NORTHWEST – a Review by Don Page

 

L-R; Seattle/Olympia salty writer
Gordon Newell
and Capt. Shaver
with precious cargo 
aboard steamer PORTLAND. 

Dated 27 Nov. 1966. Colman Dock, Seattle.  
Aboard they are transporting the first load
of 800 books, weighing 6,200 pounds.
Low-res of an original photograph from the 
archives of the Saltwater People Historical Society©

The H.W. McCurdy Marine History of the Pacific Northwest

Edited by Gordon Newell. Superior Publishing Co.

$100. (in 1966)

"The H.W. McCurdy Marine History of the Pacific Northwest may be the most remarkable book ever published on the West Coast.

It's a big book almost any way you look at it. Its buckrum binding houses 736 pages. Those pages are divided into 61 chapters, crammed with 2,000 pictures and the 950,000 words it took writer Gordon Newell to sketch the story of ships and men of the waterfront and the sea from 1896 to 1965.

These 70 years bridged the eras of sail, of coal, of oil, and now, of nuclear power aboard our ships. They saw booms and busts, hot wars and cool peace, gold rushes, launching and sinking, arrivals, and final departures.

Newell has told his story well, revering maritime history and the people who made it. He has also provided the deft touch of a professional writer and a dash of sardonic humor now and again to give the text a welcome crackle.

The history opens in 1895 with Nippon Yusen Kaisha, in company with the Great Northern Railway and Captain James Griffiths, opening the first regular Japanese steamship service to Seattle. It closes with the death in 1965 of 

'Einar Endresen, 83, an old-time sparmaker whose father founded the Endresen Spar & Lumber Co at Aberdeen, which he later managed, furnishing masts and spars to sailing vessels on the Pacific and the Atlantic coasts.'

In between are many well-remembered sea stories of the Northwest–stories such as the construction of the battleship NEBRASKA, the arrival of the 'ton of gold' ship PORTLAND, the fading of the Puget Sound Mosquito Fleet, and the rise of the waterfront unions from blood and grime to positions of responsibility.

Many of the stories are less well-remembered. For instance, the story of the two submarines built in Seattle and bought by the Province of British Columbia at the start of WW I. British Columbia's premier borrowed money from a bank to buy the subs, and Newell comments, 'For a time British Columbia enjoyed the historic distinction of being the only province of Canada to own its own mortgaged Navy.'

Newell memorializes, too, the Puget Sound skipper who went on to become admiral of the Turkish Navy and the ill-starred Skagit sailor who departed this vail by wrapping the anchor rope around his neck and jumping.

The McCurdy Marine History is not just history of Seattle or Puget Sound, of course. Its stated geographic range is from the California border north into the Arctic Ocean.

Newell has done a responsible, commendable job. He was strengthened and guided in this effort by a distinguished sponsor and a conscientious board of review. The book would have been impossible without an 'angel.' That angel and guiding light of the history was wealthy, now retired, Seattle shipbuilder, Horace McCurdy.

Early in 1963, McCurdy established a grant with the Seattle Historical Society for the research and writing of the new History. He picked Newell to do the writing. The grant grew as the book grew. It started at around $50,000 by the time Superior Publishing began distributing the 1,500 volume press run of the McCurdy History. That grant, of course, won't be paid back. Whatever small profits come will go to the Historical Society and to publisher Albert Salisbury for his gamble in putting out the book (Publishers of Lewis and Dryden went broke on it.)

McCurdy is an admitted dewy-eyed lover of things of the seas. He also is a hardheaded businessman. He wanted the best, most authentic history he could buy with his $50,000. To ensure this be assembled a review board of 17 men, all authorities on one or more phases of subjects to be covered in the History. That review board read three progressive manuscripts of the book. Members made suggestions to author Newell and supplied source material. Some even contributed sections for his editing.

The result of McCurdy's and Newell's work and the contributions of the review board, coupled with the rich material of 70 years of Northwest maritime history is a handsome volume as impressive as it looks."

Don Page review published by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer 21 May 1967. This review was extracted from Don't Leave Any Holidays Volume II, H.W. McCurdy. Inscribed copy number 38. Published July 1981. Saltwater People Historical Society collection.

Below, Don Page writes further in the Seattle P-I, 20 Oct. 1974:

"The publishing time and size of Volume I roughly doubled and McCurdy found he'd underrated the cost of playing godfather to a book of Northwest marine history. He financed the book through grants to the Seattle Museum of History and Industry and Museum Director Mrs. Sutton Gustison recalled:

'Every time we ran out of money, we'd call Mr. McCurdy and say, 'We need another thousand,' and he'd always come through.'

Everyone was happy, though, with the finished product. The "McCurdy History" sent saltwater buffs of our part of the world into ecstasy. Superior Publishing was so pleased that it put out a new edition of "Lewis & Dryden's History," to form, with the McCurdy volume, a handsome two-volume set. Newell continued to mix more books in with his Olympia politicking. The museum profited. McCurdy beamed. And a second volume was published to cover the following ten years of marine history to yield a fine three-volume collectible set. 

"This book is going to be the last word. It's going to belong to the ages, just like Lincoln." H.W. McCurdy.  

BOOK REVIEW: The SINKING OF THE PRINCESS SOPHIA . . .

PRINCESS SOPHIA 
Last position
Vanderbilt Reef,
Lynn Canal, Alaska
24 October 1918
All hands lost.
Photograph by Winter-Pond Co.
Juneau, AK.

TAKING THE NORTH DOWN WITH HER.
Authors Ken Coates and Bill Morrison
Oxford University Press,
Don Mills, Ontario, Canada.

"The most tragic maritime event ever to occur on the Pacific Coast was the sinking of the Canadian Pacific Railway Steamer Princess Sophia, in October 1918. All of the 353 crew and passengers aboard died in the icy waters of the Lynn Canal when the ship was southbound in Alaskan waters from Skagway to Vancouver, B.C. The shock to the people of the Pacific Northwest was devastating at the time, particularly in the Yukon and Alaska. But the appalling shipwreck was overshadowed by two concurrent tragedies that took millions of lives -- the Great War and the Influenza Epidemic.

        Time has healed most of the wounds of that period, and few people today remember Princess Sophia. Her sad story is back in the limelight again with a book by two Canadian historians–– The Sinking of the Princess Sophia; Taking the North Down With Her, by Ken Coates and Bill Harrison, published by the Oxford University Press.

      The Princess Sophia, built in Scotland in 1912, was the finest and newest ship operating in Alaska, well-found, well-manned, equipped with wireless, and met all safety requirements.

        On her fatal voyage, she carried a maximum number of passengers, for she was one of the last ships of the season to sail south with passengers escaping the northern freeze-up. Some of the most prominent citizens of the Yukon and Alaska were aboard. One-tenth of the citizens of Dawson City were involved in the winter exodus, so hardly a family in the Northland was unaffected by the tragedy. In addition, the ship carried many of the crews of the Yukon River steamboats. In command of Sophia was Capt. L.P. Locke, one of the most experienced masters in the C.P.R. coastal fleet.

         The liner left Skagway, at the head of Lynn Canal on her last run of the season for Vancouver, B.C., on the early evening of 23 October 1918. She soon ran into a raging storm, for the Lynn Canal is notorious for sudden furious gales that whip down its narrow waters from the north. In a blinding snowstorm, destroying visibility, somehow Capt. Locke lost his bearings. At 2:00 a.m. at a speed of 12 knots, the ship ran up on Vanderbilt Reef, a then poorly marked rock in the center of the channel, and there she settled fair and square on an even keel, though she had suffered a mortal wound to her hull.

        A distress call was sent out, and several small vessels were on the scene from Juneau the next morning. It was hoped she would float off at high tide, but it was not to be. The storm increased in ferocity, from fifty miles to one hundred miles-an-hour winds, while the ship founded and groaned with the fury of the elements. Capt. Locke refused to lower the lifeboats because he feared they would be dashed against the reef. He was apparently not too worried about the fate of the ship, thinking the storm would soon abate.

        For forty frightening hours, the reef maintained the grip on the ship, while all aboard waited for the expected rescue attempt. The storm increased in strength, and the small stand-by vessels were forced to take refuge. The grinding of the ship's plates on the reed added to the apprehension of those on board. At 4:30 on the afternoon of Friday 25 October, a fateful message came over the airwaves from the Sophia.

PRINCESS SOPHIA
photo dated 24 October 1918.
Vanderbilt Reef, Alaska.
Orginal photo from the archives of the 
Saltwater People Historical Society

        "Ship foundering on reef. Come at once."

        

        At 5:20 p.m. the static broke with the horrifying message from wireless operator David Robinson. "For God's sake, hurry. The water is coming into my room."

        It was the last human contact with the ship. She slipped off the reef into the icy seas and sank like a stone. Within hours the adjacent waters were littered with bodies. Every human aboard perished. Only a dog swam safely to shore.

        The people of the nearby little town of Juneau rose nobly to the crisis as they United to search for hundreds of bodies, washed the oil-soaked and battered remains, and prepared them for a decent burial. Everything that could be done was done given the tragic circumstances. The Canadian Pacific rescue ships, Princess Alice and Tees only arrived in time to carry the makeshift coffins south. Their arrival at Vancouver coincided with the celebration of the Armistice on November 11, but the Yukon Territory and Alaska went into mourning.

        The subsequent marine inquiry absolved the C.P.R. from blame, for there were no witnesses alive to tell exactly what had happened on that fateful morning when the ship ran ashore. Relatives of the victims sued the railway company for damages in the American courts. The litigation went on for years, entailing huge legal fees, and was not concluded until October 1932, fourteen years after the disaster, when the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of limited liability for the defendants. The relatives received nothing.

        Some of the relatives of the crew members of the ship and of the river steamers were a little more fortunate. In the courts, the C.P.R. fought payment by the Workmen's Compensation Board of B.C., because the tragedy occurred in Alaskan waters outside of B.C.'s jurisdiction. Canadian courts concurred in the claim, and the litigation went to the final court of appeal, the Privy Council in London, which ruled in favor of the bereaved relatives. Widows received the modest sum of $20.00 per month life pension, with a bonus of $5.00 a month for each orphaned child.

        The two authors of the book have taken a scholarly approach to the story. The opening chapters emulate the successful technique used in  "A Night to Remember," by Walter Lord––the story of the sinking of the Titanic. They describe the inexorable decline of the Gold Rush communities in the North, which culminated in the loss by shipwreck of many of their most prominent citizens. The lives of many of the victims have been researched from the human-intere4st side. Appendices include the names of all known victims of the disaster, although several stowaways were never accounted for. The book clearly demolishes many wild rumors that flourished at the time, such as the canard that Capt. Locke refused to launch the boats to save money for the C.P.R.

        The authors are guilty of one geographical 'howler.' They have the Princess Sophia sailing north from Vancouver up Howe Sound en route to Skagway. That would only have taken her to Squamish. And Johnstone Strait is misspelled 'Johnson Strait.'

        There are excellent photographs and maps, but the book would have profited by the inclusion of an index."

Words by Norman R. Hacking

Published by The Sea Chest, a membership journal of the 

Puget Sound Maritime Historial Society.

December 1990.

Archives of the Saltwater People Historical Society.

❖ A PORTRAIT OF A SHIP ❖

BENJAMIN F. PACKARD
ON 3270
Full-rigged, 2,156 G.t.–– 2,013 N. t.
244.2' x 43.2' x 18.2'
Crew of 25.
Built by Goss, Sawyer & Packard at Bath, ME, in 1883.
Photo back-dated 18 March 1925
Original photo from the archives of the Saltwater People Historical Society.©

Paul C. Morris, A Portrait of a Ship. Lower Cape Publishing Co., Orleans, Massachusetts, 1987.
Bibliography, index, 180 photographs, including four color images, 16 pen-and-ink drawings executed by the author as well as a painting of the BENJAMIN F. PACKARD on the dust jacket, book size 9 x 12.5-inches, 200 pages.

      "This fine book is one-of-a-kind for sailing ship historians, model builders, and armchair readers. One reason is that it contains probably the most complete set of photographs ever published about any full-rigged American sailing ship. The vessel is the 'Down easter' BENJAMIN F. PACKARD, that spent 17 years registered on Puget Sound. Morris' book is the life account of a true 'hell ship', one of the latter-day sailing ships, that did not have a good name among Cape Horn sailing ship men, primarily because of the way many of the captains and 'bucko' officers treated them.
      The PACKARD was a well-known vessel on Puget Sound, first as a lumber carrier, sailing from such ports as Port Blakely, Port Townsend, Bellingham, and Tacoma, and later as an Alaska salmon cannery ship sailing out of Seattle.
      The brutalities practiced aboard the PACKARD are recounted by the author from eye-witness accounts and presents a different picture of the days of 'wooden ships and iron men' than some of the romanticized accounts about the days of sail. Shanghaiing, deaths at sea, etc., are all documented in this well-written history of the BENJAMIN F. PACKARD.
      As a thorough photographic record of one of the last down-east square-riggers, A Portrait of a Ship is a must for readers of northwest maritime history covering the period of approximately 1890 to 1925. Moreover, direct quotes from the detailed correspondence of Sewall Company, the PACKARD's owners from 1887-1908, give an insight into the commercial aspects of operating a sailing ship."

The above review was written by historian Michael Jay Mjelde for The Sea Chest, quarterly membership journal of the Puget Sound Maritime Society, Seattle, WA. March 1988.
      
1925: BENJAMIN F. PACKARD was retired from cannery service of Booth Fisheries Co. 
      She was sold to Hansen & Nieder Lumber Co of Seattle & dispatched to the east coast where it was planned to use her as a coal barge. She was taken over by Theodore Roosevelt Pell of New York, who hoped to keep her afloat as a museum, and for a time she was moored at the foot of 129th Street, New York. 
      One of her longtime masters was Capt. A. A. Aas.

☛ BOOK REVIEW ☛ "BUILDING BOATS WAS ALL HE EVER WANTED TO DO"

From the library of the S.P.H.S.

Knee Deep in Shavings: Memories of Early Yachting and Boatbuilding on the West Coast.
Blanchard, Norman C., with Stephen Wilen. Victoria, BC; Horsdal & Schubart Publishers. Ltd. 

      "In 1778, the sailors' sailor Capt. Cook blithely sailed past the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the 15-mile-wide entrance to Puget Sound. He didn't have a clue there was anything down there. In the 1920s and 1930s, the golden age of yachting, publications featured who was who in New York, Newport, and Boston. They also didn't have a clue there was anything out there in Puget Sound.
      This book is the opening of a long-lost treasure trove of information about some of yachting's finest designers, builders, and sailors, whom virtually no one knew about. Although the book's title refers to the West Coast, it is focused on Puget Sound not only because the chronicler, Norm Blanchard, built boats in Seattle, but also because that's where most of the action was. Puget Sound and its adjoining passages are blessed with islands, fjords, bays, and coves unnumbered. Its forests provided unending supplies of high quality, long-length native woods. 
      This environment spawned numerous boat yards and attracted great craftsmen. In fact, they were so busy that in 1936 the Board of Education of Seattle, the funky little town in the center of all this activity, hired one of the builders, Jim Chambers, to establish a boatbuilding school, Edison Tech Boatbuilding, in order to keep up with the growing demand for the wooden boats. That school, now Seattle Community College School of Marine Carpentry, is still in operation because yacht clients with high standards of excellence find the best quality craftsmanship there in Puget Sound.
      The special wonder revealed by this book is that the West Coast boats were designed mainly by homegrown folks, including Ted Geary, Ben Seaborn, Ed Monk, and Bill Garden. Geary and Seaborn designed most of the boats Norm mentions, and thus he talks most about their personalities, as well as the outstanding vessels they drafted. Norm does a good job of bringing these two geniuses to life. West Coast designers had little coverage during the high times of wooden yachts. But look at the photos, read of the vessels' performances, and believe that some of the Puget Sound naval architects should arguably be in the designers' Hall of Fame.
      The first quarter of this book begins with a history of the Blanchard Boat Co and Norm Blanchard's family. So many exquisite yachts were launched there, mainly for the middle-class backbone of the West Coast. From 1905 to 1941 the yard's production was a long line of top design and fine craftsmanship. The work of the Blanchard Co was recognized and praised by the designers and the clients; thus orders kept coming for more boats. However, typical of so many renowned yards, Norm states, 'Except for the SILVER KING, and maybe one or two other contracts, the company had been so unprofitable in the prewar years that we could barely justify our existence. If Dad had any business sense at all he would have given up years earlier, but building boats was all he ever wanted to do.' One may well assume that great boatbuilders are born that way, and the profit-and-loss departments of their brains are only vestigial.
      The book is a series of memories narrated by Norm Blanchard and recorded and edited by Stephen Wilen. Norm couldn't be a more ideal chronicler of the happenings in Puget Sound. He has an encyclopedic memory, a great photo collection, and he treats the cast of characters involved with the yachting scene in a straight-arrow manner, compassionate and nonjudgmental. However, he hands out a few sharp rebukes to a couple of customers for their lack of courtesy, and to William Atkin, the naval architect, for sloppy tables of offsets.
      Norm is a kind and patient soul but he suffers no fools. However, Norm doesn't knock people for trying. I enjoyed this story about the man who in 1932 commissioned the beautiful 58-ft sloop CIRCE, designed by Ben Seaborn when Seaborn was in high school. 

CIRCE
Ben Seaborn designer
Ray Cooke, owner. 
Seattle, WA. 1934
Original photo from the archives of the S.P.H.S.©

CIRCE had the fine lines of a fast vessel, but the owner insisted on buying cheap sails that would become baggy in a short time. The sloop never did particularly well at races. Norm kindly concludes this story with: 'Anyway, the CIRCE was a wonderful design, especially for a kid who was still in high school when he designed her, and we have Ray Cooke to thank for her existence. Ray Cooke was never the yachtsman that he aspired to be, but he was a man who played a big role in my early years of sailing.'
      Norm also shares other perceptive observations about the flashy guys and the spear carriers he feels played significant roles in the West Coast yachting scene. He is a good journalist and senses interplay of attitudes. 'My acquaintance with Roy was made when he was having his first ever sail with Geary on SIR TOM. I think he thought that Ted [Geary] was going to buy a Cadillac from him, and I'm just as certain that Ted had thought that Roy [Corbett] was going to have himself a yacht.'
      The work of Ted Geary especially shines through in this book. His sailing vessels were virtually unbeatable. SIR TOM, an R-class sloop, lost only one race and that was to PIRATE, another Geary-designed "R" boat. His motor yachts, including MALIBU, PRINCIPIA, CANIM, AND BLUE PETER, are still going strong and still calendar art specimens of beautiful vessels.
      Knee Deep in Shavings is a valuable part of our maritime heritage. It tells us in fresh words and many never-before-published photos how a small population, still carving its existence out of the wilderness, ensnared yachting as part of its life and created some of the most fabulous vessels imaginable."

This review was written by the late, great Dick Wagner for The Sea Chest, June 2001. The journal of Puget Sound Maritime, Seattle, WA.
Here is a  link to a post on one chapter  about sailor Roy Corbett, from Knee Deep in Shavings by Blanchard on S.P.H.S. and 
another link here on a chapter about sailing in the San Juans, also by Blanchard.

❖ BOOK REVIEW ❖ THE SEA INSIDE

Allison Hart Lengyel
September 2015

The Sea Inside

Philip Hoare, The Sea Inside
(Brooklyn: Melville House Publishing, 2014)

“The sea defines us, connects us, separates us. Most of us experience only its edges, our available wilderness on a crowded island—it’s why we call our coastal towns ‘resorts,’ despite their air of decay” (Hoare, p. 7).

Philip Hoare is the pen name of Patrick Moore, perhaps best known in England for producing the Moby Dick Big Read, an ambitious online audiobook of all 135 chapters of Melville’s classic, delivered by, among others, Tilda Swinton, David Attenborough, and David Cameron. Hoare is also the author of seven works of nonfiction, including a book previously reviewed in this forum, The Whale: In Search of the Giants of the Sea (New York: Ecco Press, 2010).
  The Sea Inside was published in the United States in 2014. It’s a far-ranging memoir, travelogue, philosophical inquiry, and cultural history. Above all, it’s about our relationship to the sea and the shore, with particular emphasis on our long and troubled relationship with cetaceans (particularly sperm whales, blue whales, humpback whales, orcas, dolphins, and porpoises) that continue to roam the world’s oceans despite centuries of exploitation, pollution, habitat destruction, and hunting. It’s also about Hoare’s encounters with scientists who study cetaceans, and with the human outcasts and recluses who live along the shore and make their living there—fishermen, poets, artists, monks, and other travelers. Everywhere Hoare goes—and he visits the Azores, Sri Lanka, Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania, Nova Scotia, Southern Maine, and Southern England in the course of this book—he gets into the ocean and swims. He swims for exercise every day when he’s at home in Sholing, South Hampton; he swims with dolphins and whales in the open sea, from the Indian Ocean, to the South Pacific, to the north Atlantic. “When you swim in the sea you see it as the cosmos floating all around you. We are ghosts, invaders in a way…” (21 June 2013, theguardian.com). 
Hoare begins his story with a walk through the house where he grew up, in Sholing. “In the years since I have come back to it, the house has grown to become part of me, even as it is falling apart. … Back home, I walk around the house in the dark. I know its rooms as well as I know my own body. I catch myself in the mirror on the landing, hung so that my mother could check her make-up before coming downstairs, her necklace in place, just as my father always wore a tie. Now I look in it and wonder who I am” (Hoare, p. 3 and p. 36). He takes the reader on a tour of the house and of the countryside where he grew up, building his story outward and back in time, from present-day oil refineries in Sholing to his childhood before they existed, all the way back to the history of Roman occupation and the pagan “druidical stones” (round stones with a hole bored through the center), thought to protect people and cattle alike from misfortune or sickness. 
      After the walk through his home and environs, he continues on a walk about his home shores, I think, to demonstrate how the sea is part of our collective past. Familial structures, community, and interdependence are something we share with cetaceans. In subsequent chapters, Hoare roams farther and farther away from England relating stories of natural and human drama as they take place near the sea or in it. Hoare’s book is packed full of details, bits of scientific knowledge, lore, mythology, and history. His observations, often supplemented with scientific data, are also lovingly appreciative. For example, the Humpback whale, up to 50 tons and 50’ long, is a “barnacled angel” that loves to leap out of the water in a graceful arc. While the Sperm whale—which can dive one mile down and stay down for up to two hours—doesn’t “show off” like the Humpback. When it breaches in preparation to dive, it leaps nearly straight up and down. Regardless of style, whales all exhale residual water and spent air from their blow holes and then load their blood with oxygen by taking one or more nearly full tidal breaths —marine mammals’ tidal volume is typically greater than 75% of total lung capacity, compared to the typical terrestrial mammal for whom the typical volume of air inhaled and exhaled in one breath is in the range of 10-15% of TLC. Dolphins have the largest brains, relative to body size, in nature; it’s only logical that such an intelligent animal uses tools, communicates with other communities over a great distance, and has an abstract sense of itself as an individual. Dolphins and sperm whales are both intensely collective, with matrilineal societies. From his close encounter swimming alongside a sperm whale, Hoare reports that “the eye of a whale is absolute sentience” (“Philip Hoare at 5X15,” vimeo.com/68573306). 
      You or I might say The Sea Inside is about encounters with cetaceans around the world. But according to Hoare himself, The Sea Inside is essentially about “the sense of what is home.” He begins the story at home, and he ends the story at home, finally clearing out his late mother’s room six years after her death. “All the things I imagined as a child, all the things I feared; they’re not at the end of the world, and they’re not here, either. I close my notebook and put it on the shelf, along with all the others. There’s no such place as home. And we live there, you and me” (Hoare, p. 340). Perhaps his point is that the ocean is the world for cetaceans and the ocean is our world and our home, too. We are more similar than dissimilar and any separation we perceive is artificial. 
Submitted  by the author to the Saltwater People HIstorical Society Log, SJC, September 2015.

Book search here.

      Although rarely seen in the inland waters of San Juan County, a fin whale—second largest species of whale after the blue whale—recently appeared just off San Juan Island, behaving normally and feeding on krill. A report from the Whale Museum of Friday Harbor can be viewed here.

To read other book reviews and articles written by Allison Hart Lengyel, for Saltwater People, please enter her name in the "search this blog" window at the bottom of the Saltwater People Log home page.

❖ ROCHE HARBOR RESORT ❖

✍ Book Review

The Building of Roche Harbor Resort by the Tarte Family: Neil Tarte in his own words.
Narration by Neil A. Tarte (1927-2014) to Mitzi Johnson. 

Roche Harbor Resort, San Juan Island, WA.
Large photo dated 1956.
Originals from the archives of the S. P. H. S.©

"Mitzi Johnson, a long-time resident of Friday Harbor, captures Neil Tarte's words and tone in this delightful book of the history of Roche Harbor Resort during the years that the Tarte family owned it (1956-1989).
      Mitzi had promised Neil's devoted wife, Margaret, who died in 2007, that she would help Neil write his memoir. The first edition was published in 2010. Their recorded conversations are so carefully transcribed that you sense Neil himself, is explaining this story to you.
      Reuben and Clara Tarte, Neil's parents, came to the San Juan Islands in their yacht, CLAREU II, in the 1930s to find that there was no safe place to tie up a yacht––except to pilings. About 20 years later, when they purchased the 4,000 acres and 12 miles of coastline from the McMillin family, they could envision a boater's marina. None existed anywhere.
      All that was left were several buildings from the Roche Harbor Lime and Cement Co (earlier, a Hudson's Bay outpost), workers' cottages, and the McMillin home, along with a crumbling Hotel de Haro.

Hotel de Haro, Roche Harbor Resort
Winter 1958-59
A beauty parlor, snack bar, and gift shop 

were installed in the old Hotel. 
Salmon barbecues with 

Indian dance programs were staged for tourists.
Houses for miners' families were filled with motorists.

Original, dated photo from the 

Saltwater People Historical Society©

      It took all the muscle the family had with Reuben, Clara, and Neil, at the helm, to build this magnificent resort. Neil's family and close friends all played a part in turning this 'jewel in the rough' into a location where people would want to come and stay.
      With determination, as they needed things, they would find a way to get them. They were able to restore the crumbling Hotel de Haro into 20 guest rooms (including President Theodore Roosevelt's room). 

Colors Ceremony, 
a tradition begun by Reuben Tarte (1927-2014)
It is performed at dusk every night during the summer,
and familiar to all Roche Harbor regulars.
Photo by Gordon Keith.
From the archives of the S. P. H. S.©

They developed the McMillin family home into a restaurant and bar and added an outside deck and gazebo. They obtained a liquor license, turned Roche Harbor into a major port of entry for US Customs, and also added a 4,000-ft airstrip.

British blockhouse, June 1960

A favorite boating and beachcombing area 

for guests and off duty employees
in Garrison Bay,
a short trip south from Roche Harbor. 

Stopping at the most famous landmark, 

were four young Roche Harbor employees, 

Gwen Bergh, Betsy Neighbor, 

Bill Brilliant, and Kelvin Vogel.  

The blockhouse dates from ca.1860.
Original, dated, photo from the archives of the S. P. H. S.©

       Readers will be reminded of long-standing San Juan Island family names. John Wayne would bring his yacht into Roche Harbor in the 1970s, and 'the Duke' would welcome flotillas of visitors. Neil Bay, named after Neil, has been the picturesque neighborhood for dozens of families all these years. The Roche Harbor gardens, designed by Neil's mother, Clara Tarte, delight thousands of visitors annually; many weddings are booked there.
       Today, one takes for granted this beautiful location, but the blood, sweat, and tears that went into creating it are worth reading.
      You'll feel like Neil is just telling you what happened."

Review courtesy of writer Suzy Mygatt Wakefield, April 2012.
Tarte, Neil. The Building of Roche Harbor Resort by the Tarte Family. Illumina Publishing 2010.
The Building of Resort book search 

The four photographs with captions in this post are from the archives of the Saltwater People Historical Society©.
      
     

❖ U OF WASHINGTON CREW WINS GOLD IN BERLIN ❖

Very much in the good book news this year is the story of the University of Washington win in the 1936 Olympic games held in Berlin, Germany. The master craftsman, "Mr. Pocock", the coach, Al Ulbrickson, the amazing new 62-ft Western red cedar HUSKY CLIPPER, her tough crew, the supportive university, Hitler watching in the stands, and one talented writer, Daniel James Brown, all add up to an unforgettable story. As this post is being typed, the mail arrives at  the local wharf––the latest Wooden Boat magazine Number 233––with an 8-page touching article The Boat that Beat Hitler by Daniel James Brown, of Redmond, WA., author of The Boys in the Boat, published by Viking (2013). 

U of Washington sweeps the regatta with California.
UW won the Varsity, Frosh and Jayvee races on Lake
WA, to make a clean sweep of the annual regatta 
with U of Cal. The Huskies won all three races by
wide margins, setting new course records.
Photo shows the UW driving into the finish three lengths
ahead of the Golden Bears. Winners at left.
Photo dated 18 April 1936.
From the archives of S.P.H.S.©

Last home practice before heading east,
to the Princeton trials.
UW Crew, Lake Washington, 2 June 1936.

Only once in the years of association could the shell builder, Mr. Pocock, recall the coach, Al Ulbrickson showing any emotion.That was after his Husky crew defeated an outstanding Penn crew at the Olympic qualifying finals in New Jersey: 

"Al was as unemotional as ever during the race in which his crew won the right to represent the US at the Olympic Games in Berlin. Some time after the finish, he and I were walking back to the hotel. Suddenly he stopped, held out his hand and said, 'thanks, George, for your help.' Coming from Al, that was the equivalent of fireworks and a brass band." George Pocock.

After the UW victory at Princeton the team had one week before sailing on the steamship MANHATTAN, to Hamburg, en route to the Olympic Games. Their revered boatbuilder was with them.  

Photo above––crossing the line in first place is U of W.
1936 Summer Olympics, Berlin, Germany.
Al Ulbrickson's Gold Medal crew consisted of 

Coxswain, Bob Moch, 

Roger Morris, bow oar,

Charles Day, No. 2 oar, 

Gordon Adam, No. 3 oar, 

John White, No. 4 oar, 

Jim McMillan, No. 5 oar, 

George Hunt, No. 6 oar, 

Joe Rantz, No. 7 oar, 

Don Hume, stroke oar. 

UW Crew of 1936
At a 40th Reunion at Conibear Shellhouse, 1976. 

Empty place for the late Charles Day who pulled No. 2 oar.

Photo by Jerry Gay for The Seattle Times©
Original from the photo collection of the S. P. H. S.

✍ BOOK REVIEW
By 'Nagronsky' of Skagit Valley, WA, adapted from Amazon.
   
      "As a lifelong Husky fan, I was excited when I read the synopsis that this was about the 1936 University of Washington crew. I'd always been more familiar with the eight that won the 1948 World Championship over the USSR crew in Moscow but I love tales of 'small town' Seattle and the Great Generation, so I dove eagerly into it.

      Trust me, this is not a book simply about rowing, but also is about what the West, the United States, and Europe were going through in the mid-1930s, as Nazi Germany was flexing muscles. It also touches on class systems in the US and Great Britain. I was immediately strongly reminded of Laura Hillenbrand's Seabiscuit: An American Legend and her Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, and the subjects of both books are so well-done that they almost read like novels, which is the case with this book, the Hillenbrands I mentioned, George McGoverns' The Great Coalfield War, and Timothy Egan's The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl. Coincidentally, Egan and Hillenbrand are both cited in this book (as is the patron saint of Lesser Seattle, Emmett Watson.)
      Although I've seen many races through Seattle's Montlake Cut, I never knew until reading this that crew races were formerly staged over 3 miles (rather than 2000 meters) on Lake Washington (and the Oakland estuary and the Hudson River), or that they ran north of Sand Point all the way to Sheridan Beach, or that viewing trains ran along the course from University Station on what is now the Burke-Gilman Trail (the former Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway). I'd never known that the famous shell builder, George Pocock, had won the Thames boatman's race (Doggett's Coat and Badge) before emigrating to Vancouver and Seattle with his brother.
      I'd known for years (pre-'House') that actor Hugh Laurie had rowed for Cambridge, but was unaware that his father had also won his rowing Blue and rowed stroke oar there and on the 1936 England Olympic crew. Actually, Laurie didn't know until he found a medal among his father's socks. The coxswain on the Cambridge and England eight was John Noel Duckworth. When captured by the Japanese, Duckworth objected to his captors' treatment of his fellow prisoners who were wounded and offered that he himself be mistreated. He was a POW at Changoi Camp in Singapore, and then was moved to the Siam Railway project (think Bridge on the River Kwai). We Americans aren't the only people with a Greatest Generation.
      Brown chooses to focus on one member of the UW crew who he happened to become acquainted with Joe Rantz, and Rantz's childhood, adolescence, and struggles to pay tuition are almost worthy of a single book. Rantz was able to endure his mother's death, being abandoned as a teen by his father and new wife, and muscling a jackhammer (while dangling from ropes) working the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam.
      Once the UW crew and the Olympic team reaches Berlin, Brown gives more insights into life in and around mid-1930s Berlin, as well as into the disagreements between Joseph Goebbels and Leni Riefenstahl.
      I really can't recommend this book highly enough. While I loved Seabiscuit, I'm not a horse racing fan. With Louie Zamperini's spiritual redemption in Unbroken, I could care less about Billy Graham, but loved this book. As regards The Boys in the Boat, as I said previously, this is not simply about the sport of rowing, but is so much more."

THE BOYS IN THE BOAT book search

     

UW Crew, Winners of Gold at 1936 Olympics, Berlin
50th Reunion at team dock.
Space unoccupied by their late teammate Charles Day.
Photo by Alan Berner for The Seattle Times©.
 Dated 1 August 1986.
Original from photo collection of the S. P. H. S.

The HUSKY CLIPPER can be seen on display at the University. Hail to the cast, who have all rowed on.
      

For the best historical documentation of Mr. George Pocock, the premier racing shell builder in the world, Gordon Newell has written the classic Ready All! George Yeoman Pocock and Crew Racing, University of Washington Press, 1987. 
A new edition with a foreward by Dick Erickson including two cover photos from the Saltwater People Historical Society archives was published in 2015: 
READY ALL book search