❖ CODFISH IN THE HOLD ❖ Schooner C. A. THAYER

"Codfish in the hold of the C. A. THAYER,
Poulsbo, WA.,
still covered by the salt with which they were cured.
A member of the crew displays one of the cod."
Original photo from the archives of the Saltwater People H.S. ©.
Written permission is needed to use photographs from this log.

"For the fishermen, a typical day's work begins with breakfast at 4 am. At 4:30 the dories are launched and the fishermen fan out from the parent ship to the spots where they drop their lines to begin the day's fishing. Two lines are used from each dory, one on each side of the boat. Hooks are baited with halibut if that is available.
      The banks where the C. A. THAYER operates are the best codfish banks on the Pacific Coast. The ship anchors about ten miles offshore, and dories fish as far as five miles from the ship. The method used is bottom fishing, the depth of the water at this distance from shore being approximately 150-feet.
      At 9 o'clock in the forenoon, the dories start coming in for dinner, served at any time from 9 until 11 o'clock. This is the heaviest meal of the day, as the fishermen still have a full afternoon's work ahead of them. They return at the end of their second trip for supper at 5 pm, which concludes the day's work for the fishermen.
      The dressing crew starts to work as soon as the first dory or two arrives with a reasonably good catch about 9 am. If the fish are biting well, they work from that time on, at top speed until the last of the day's catch is put into the cure. If the fishing is exceptionally good, they must work well into the night, since the catch for each day must be processed completely is clear the work for the succeeding day's catch.
      In the three month period the ship lies off the codfish banks, there usually will be only 3-weeks or so when both the weather and fishing are good. During only 60 to 70 days the weather will permit the dories to go out.
      The Bering Sea codfish are true, or gray cod, only distantly related to most Puget Sound varieties of codfish.
      By the time the schooner has returned with her cargo to Poulsbo the cured fish have lost 75% of their weight so that one pound of dried fish equals four pounds of fresh. Additional weight is lost in later processing, by removal of the skin and bones, so that the one-pound package of codfish is equivalent to six pounds of fresh codfish.
      Ed Shields took his first trip to the Bering Sea as a crew member in 1934 and took other subsequent trips, meantime attending the University of WA, where he studied engineering. He graduated in 1939, then took a year of graduate engineering work at Harvard. He put his engineering training to use in the Bremerton Naval Shipyard during the war. Since obtaining his master's papers, he skippered the C. A. THAYER during her 1949 and 1950 voyages.
      Shields would like to put an end to the constantly recurring rumors that the sailing vessel has made her last trip to the Bering. The company has operated successfully for the past 40 years with its present methods of fishing, he points out, and he sees no reason why it will not continue to do so. Work already is underway on the vessel, preparing her for next season's visit to the Far North fishing grounds."
Text from The Seattle Times, 21 January 1951.

The four new photographs below were kindly sent to our society by Jim Shields of Poulsbo, WA., August 2012.
The vintage dory is one saved from his family's cod fishing business. The dory recently underwent some refit after years in storage; the craft and contents are an important part of the historical display at the non-profit Poulsbo Historical Society.  They have a research library and historical museum now located in the Poulsbo City Hall.
For hours and directions please check out their website here.

   
   

❖ Captain J. E. Shields and His One-Man War ☆ ☆ ☆ A Memorial Day Tribute from "High Tide"

Captain J. E. Shields 
a'board SOPHIE CHRISTENSON

Photograph kindly shared by his grandson Jim Shields, 2011.

"Among my most interesting friends on Seattle's waterfront was Capt. J. E. Shields, shipowner and master mariner extraordinary, who became an international figure a few years before Pearl Harbor by saving from foreign invasion the rich Bristol Bay fishing grounds. This area is famous as the world's greatest district. 

      With nets across the lanes followed by migrating salmon, Japanese fishermen were a threat to the huge Bristol Bay salmon packing industry, and were hampering the operations of the Puget Sound codfishing fleet.

      Protests were of no avail; Capt. Shields sent his famous wireless message asking that a dozen rifles each and plenty of ammunition be sent to the schooners SOPHIE CHRISTENSON and CHARLES R. WILSON, fishing in the Bering Sea. Capt. Shields commanded the SOPHIE, while Capt. Knute Pearson was master of the WILSON.

      The dispatch attracted attention all over the country and was cabled to Japan by news agencies. It was followed a few days later by this message from the SOPHIE:

    'Hurrah! Hurrah! All Japanese boats out of the Bering Sea. Rifles no longer needed'.

     Shields, single-handed, had been successful in what repeated protests and international negotiations had failed to accomplish. The Japanese left the Bering before the run of red salmon began and consequently there was a big pack that year. The sturdy skipper had won a one-man war without firing a shot.
      The famous dispatch of Capt. Shields requesting rifles and ammunition for the SOPHIE CHRISTENSON and the CHARLES R. WILSON, was followed by an announcement by a high Coast Guard officer that "if there is going to be any shooting in the Bering Sea, the Coast Guard will do it," but leaders in the fishing industry only smiled.
      I remember a typical story of a codfishing cruise told to me in 1938 by Capt. Shields after his famous "one-man war" with the Japanese. The SOPHIE CHRISTENSON, commanded by the colorful sailing ship skipper, had just towed into Poulsbo, a codfish center for more than 40 years, after a five-month cruise. In the hold of the picturesque vessel were 385,000--not pounds--but codfish, caught on the Bering Sea fishing grounds. In the log of the four-masted sailing schooner were entries that read like pages of a movie thriller.
      Capt. Shields told of chasing the invading Japanese out of the Bering Sea.
      'We had 150 fathoms of chain out and it was blowing great guns,' read one of the entries in the log of the SOPHIE.
      There were days when it was impossible to get a dory over the side and not a fish was caught. Then there would be smiling skies and smooth seas and the fishermen were in their dories by 4 o'clock in the morning, harvesting the gray cod from the sea. The fishermen did not expect calm weather all the time and often sent their blunt-nosed dories into heaving swells, leaving behind them the whine of outboard motors and the odor of burned gasoline.
      One night, a hardy, bearded, fisherman told me, we were lost on the banks in a great fog far from the ship, but Capt.Shields was equal to the situation. With a mechanical fog horn going full blast, he went aloft to the crosstrees and there, 85-feet above the heaving deck, rigged an automobile spotlight hooked up to a six-volt battery. The skipper spent three hours there alone, flashing the brilliant light into the cold, murky night until he saw a faint blur through the ghostly fog. The 'lost' fishermen boarded the ship at 3 o'clock in the morning. They were glad to get back to the SOPHIE and thanked the skipper for what he had done for them.
      High-line man for the voyage was Ray Press with 21,155 fish. With a five-pound sinker and two hooks, Press landed as many as a thousand fish a day.
      Cod are caught in deep water with halibut for bait. The fisherman gradually brings the school closer to the surface, where he works with two lines, one on each side of his anchored dory. With the precision of a machine, he pulls up one line, takes the fish off, baits the hooks, drops the line with its five-pound sinker, and hauls away on the other line. The fish sometimes come into the boat at the rate of 100 an hour, often being caught two at a time.
      A typical day's work begins with breakfast at 4 o'clock in the morning and by 4:30, the dories go over the side and fan out from the mother ship.
      Arriving in the Bering Sea, the ship anchors about 10 miles offshore and the fishermen, in their dories, go as far as five miles from the vessel. By 9 o'clock in the forenoon, the dories, laden with codfish, begin coming in. The fishermen eat dinner before returning to the fishing grounds. This is the heaviest meal of the day. By 5 o'clock in the afternoon, they return for supper and conclude the day's work.
      During the morning, the dressing crew begins work as soon as the first dories arrive. If fishing is good, the crew works from that time until the day's catch is in the hold. Sometimes, these men work well into the night putting the catch in cure, since each day's take must be processed in order to be ready for the following day's catch.
     Capt. Ed Shields, son of Capt. J. E. Shields, is plant manager at Poulsbo and skipper of the schooner C. A. THAYER. He says his plant, originally started in 1911, is the only one of the Pacific Coast that produces and markets codfish.
      Ed Shields made his first trip to the Bering in 1934. Between cruises, he attended the UW where he studied engineering. He graduated in 1939 and then took a year of advanced engineering at Harvard. He put his engineering knowledge to practical use at the Puget Sound Naval Station during WWII.

 Pacific Coast Codfish Co. crew 
unloading their schooner, Poulsbo, WA.
Photo by B. Torvanger,  Pt. Madison, 1914.
From the Saltwater People Historical Society © archives.

      When the schooner returns to Poulsbo with her catch, the cured fish have lost 75 per cent of their weight. One pound of dried fish equals four pounds of fresh fish. More weight is lost in later processing, by the removal of the skin and bones, so a one-pound package of codfish is equivalent to six pounds of fresh codfish.
      As skipper and owner of the SOPHIE CHRISTENSON, Capt. J. E. Shields was the most versatile of master mariners. He was navigator, ship's doctor, pharmacist, a judge of all disputes involving the crew, chief fish-tallier and dentist."
This story, Captain J. E. Shields and His One-Man War, was written by the Seattle waterfront reporter R. H. Calkins, who published his colorful collection of c. 50 essays under the title High Tide, The Stories of Seattle's Waterfront.(1952) 

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❖ THE PACIFIC COAST CODFISH COMPANY FLEET ❖

Schooner JOHN A 

Undated original from the archives 
of the Saltwater People Historical Society.©

"The three-masted codfish schooner JOHN A was launched in the Eureka, California yard of Peter Mathews, in 1893. She was 131.7 feet L with a 32-foot beam and a 9.8-foot depth of hold. The gross was 282.4-tons; a very fine sailing vessel for her small size.

      The JOHN A was the first schooner of the Pacific Coast Codfish Company fleet to come to Poulsbo. In 1911 my father, Captain J. E. Shields, and others formed a new fish processing company named Pacific Coast Codfish Company (PCCC.) A processing and storage plant was constructed on the shores of Liberty Bay. They purchased the three-masted schooner JOHN A in southern California with Captain John Grottle as the ship's master. The vessel was brought north with a good supply of salt for the preservation of the first year's cargo. The JOHN A sailed to the banks near Sand Point, Alaska, and also near Sanak Island. All fishing was done from one-man dories launched each day from the schooner and returned to her in the evening with the day's catch.

      A good catch resulted, and the fish plant in Poulsbo began winter operations. The salted fish were removed from the vessel, scrubbed, and stored in wooden tanks holding 20-tons each. A work crew was hired to further process the fish. Some saltfish was dried in the sun while other fish had skin and bones removed to be packed in one-pound packages for shipment to the various stores. Thus, a new industry came into operation and a winter payroll resulted.

In 1913 the three-masted schooner CHARLES R. WILSON was purchased. She was constructed in Fairhaven (Eureka,) California in 1891 for the lumber trade, but was then laid up. She was 150-feet L with 35-feet beam x 11-foot depth of hold. She was rated at 345-tons gross; she could land nearly 500-tons of cured cod.

      The company purchased other sailing vessels, all without engines, including the three-master C A THAYER, in 1925. The THAYER was built by Danish-American Hans Bendixen in Eureka at the same yard as the CHARLES R. WILSON, also for the lumber trade. She was listed at 452-tons gross. She could land nearly 600-tons of salt cod which may explain why she was the last commercial sailing vessel on the US west coast and the last to operate out of Poulsbo. She landed her last cargo in 1950 with Captain Ed Shields in command.

       Another sailing vessel of the PCCC fleet, probably the most famous, was the SOPHIE CHRISTENSON, a four-masted schooner built in Port Blakely in 1901. She was built for the lumber trade and for hauling general cargo. She was 180.6-feet long with a 38.9-foot beam and a 13.4-foot depth of hold. She first came to Poulsbo with Captain John Grottle, and last in 1941 with Captain J.E. Shields, her famous skipper. She carried a crew of 22 dory-fishermen, a dressing crew, and cooks to make a total of 44 men.                

      When the war broke out in 1941, the US Government took possession of the JOHN A, the C.A. THAYER, and the SOPHIE CHRISTENSON. Only the C.A. THAYER returned to the fishing trade after the war. The CHARLES R. WILSON operated during the war years delivering cargos of salt cod every year except in 1944. During this time she was under the command of Captain Knute Pearson of Poulsbo.

      During the late 1930s to 1941, the codfish plant provided employment for up to 40 persons, some men, and some women. For the men, it was work on the fishing grounds at sea during the summer season of five months, and work in the fish plant in the winter.

      After the war, conditions returned to near normal as far as the worldwide need for food was concerned. Commercial mechanical refrigeration came into more prominent use and the need for salt preservation passed as frozen fish became available in all of the grocery stores. Thus came the end to this fishery in 1950."

  From: ABOUT THE BOATS

By Captain Ed Shields (1916-2002)

Poulsbo, WA.

Captain James Edward Shields established his reputation from the age of 17, when he went to sea to help his father crew the SOPHIE CHRISTENSON into the Bering Sea and the history books. During the five-month fishing trip, the 45-man vessel set the all-time American record for codfish, hauling home an astounding 455,000 cod. He earned a Masters Degree in Engineering from Harvard but never once turned his back to the sea. Some believe his "crowning touch" was his six-year effort to write the incredible Salt of the Sea: The Pacific Coast Cod Fishery and the Last Days of Sail. The artist Shields remarked that he knew he was the only one left to write the story. Soon after the completion of the manuscript, in the words he chose for his salty father, he "crossed the bar," at the age of 86-years.