❖ LABOR DAY with SEA SALT ❖

Labor Day was created by the labor movement in the late nineteenth century to celebrate the achievements of workers. It is considered the unofficial end of summer that became a federal holiday in 1894.
      Labour Day in Canada has been celebrated on the first Monday in September since the 1880s.
      From this historical archive, we remember some of the workers from the maritime industry, hard-working people who were caught on film, from an industry spread wide and deep throughout the Pacific Northwest. We start with a salt born in San Juan County;

      

A lifetime career of safe transport of
passengers & freight in the PNW.
Sam Barlow served on many vessels but
he is most remembered for his work on
the SS ROSALIE and the ROSARIO,
serving San Juan County where he
was born and raised.
Original photo from the S.P.H.S.©

Hail to the workers transporting the lumber.
Puget Sound Freight Lines 
On land and sea 
Original undated photo from S.P.H.S.©

George Leis
Keeper of the Canoes for 37 years!
at the time of this 1950 photograph at the UW.
Original photo from the archives of the S.P.H.S.©

Capt. John Backland Jr., 1937.
Highly regarded Arctic trader aboard
schooner C.S. HOLMES.
Original photo from the archives of the S.P.H.S.©

SHIPWRIGHT TOM PARKER
trying to save the
Schooner WAWONA,
Seattle, WA., May 1950.
Original photo from the archives of the S.P.H.S.©

Hauling gold ore into the Port of Seattle,
1957
Original photo from the archives of the S.P.H.S.©

Chet North
building a set of reefnet boats
at his shop in Deer Harbor,
Orcas Island, in the 1940s.
Photos kindly submitted by
Barbara Brown, Orcas Island.

Commercial fishermen pulling in salmon

on a reefnet boat near Squaw Bay.

Crew Jim Sesby (L) and gear owner 

Ed Hopkins (R) and top, 1983.

Shaw Island, WA.

 photocopies courtesy of the Hopkins family.

Bob Schoen and his freight boat
NORDLAND
228912
Built in Hadlock, WA., in 1929
for the Port of Port Townsend.
The required crew, one.
Bob Schoen found her in 1950 and brought her
to the San Juans where she carried
lumber, power-cables, toilets & sinks, people,
groceries, sheep to slaughter, logging equipment, 
gas, diesel, lube oil by the barrels, cattle.
Other later skippers were Dave Strickland,
Steve Barnes, Corkey North, and Al Jones.
Original photos courtesy of the Schoen family & Steve McKenna.
Click to enlarge.

Island Belt Cannery fill-in workers from the community
on a day when tenders delivered an overload of fish.
Bruns, Crawford, Fowler, Lee, and Stillman family
members have been identified in this photo with help
from the young boy in the front row, right, Lee Bruns.
Harney Channel, Shaw Island, c. 1920.

Riggers and sailmakers,
Rupert and Grenville Broom,
at the historic sail loft established by their father, George Broom.
For ships sailing in the war service, and later, they were 
manufacturing boatswain's chairs, pilot ladders, lifeboat sails, 
and debarkation nets of many kinds. 
Pier 8, Seattle, WA., 1943.
Original photo from the archives of S.P.H.S.©

Rev. Glion T. Benson
with his new 26' mission boat,
the ROYAL CROSS,
boating to work in the San Juan Islands.
Dated June 1957.
Original photo purchased for the archives of the S.P.H.S.© 

❖ TUGBOAT STUBBY born on Orcas Island in 1950 ❖

"Mississippi" Toler
With STUBBY working in the San Juan Islands,
Date between 1950 & 1982.
Courtesy of Deer Harbor's Cliff Thompson and 
Mark Freeman, Seattle.

STUBBY was built by boatbuilder, Chet North, in Deer Harbor, Orcas Island, for Bill "Mississippi" Toler. She was put in the lumber trade in the San Juan Islands as a boom boat in 1950. STUBBY had 1 1/8" fir planking covered with 3/4" Ironbark.
      In 1982 STUBBY was purchased by the Fremont Tugboat Company of Seattle. According to Wooden Boat magazine, she was renamed SPANNER and added to the company's growing fleet. SPANNER was recaulked, refastened and repowered with a 60-HP Gray Lugger, that turned a 22 x 21" propeller through a 3:1 reduction gear. A new house was installed. Designer for the rebuilding was Lewis B. Nasmyth, mechanical work was done by Bill Francis, and the shipwright was Steve Humphries.
      The tug was in dry storage in Anacortes, prior to her recent purchase and a survey revealed that no planking or frames had to be removed because of dry rot, although the rest of the vessel had deteriorated beyond repair. The 24-ft workboat joined five other tugs in the fleet of Fremont Tugboat Company.
Source of text data: Wooden Boat magazine, date of publishing unknown.

❖ NORTH'S NORTH STAR ❖

NORTH STAR, Deer Harbor, Orcas Island.
Built 1930, by boatbuilder Chet North,
who sailed her into this port and never left.
Only known photo, saved by his Deer Harbor neighbors. 

"In 1911 Thomas Fleming Day, editor of Rudder magazine, sailed the 25-ft yawl SEA BIRD from the US to Italy,  single-handed. 

L-R: Frederick B. Thurber, T. R. Goodwin, Thomas F. Day
in 1911
Aboard SEA BIRD before their trip to Italy.
Library of Congress Photo (LC-B2-2207-9)

      A near copy of the boat plans appearing in the magazine, caught the eye of a multitude of people, one of them being Chet North, then living in Portland, OR. 
     In 1930 he completed a 22-ft copy of the vessel, with the addition of a 1928 Chevrolet engine, for more dependable arrivals.
     The boat was trucked to Olympia, WA for an October launching, along with one large police dog, the two senior Norths, and a new wife. Chet had just married Averil; on Halloween night they all set off for Canada, heading into a freshening northeaster. The first night was spent on McNeil Island.
      In December while returning from BC, they stopped for an overnight in Deer Harbor and never left.
      Only one picture was ever taken of the boat and that was also the only time that all sails were up; the engine having proved too handy. This photograph was found among the Pearmain family's collection of 'unknowns'.
The remains of the boat were, and perhaps are still, in the blackberry bushes on the Coffelt property on Lopez Island." 
Text by mariner/historian L. W. 'Corkey' North, son of boatbuilder Chet North, 2006.

This image from The Rudder, October 1901.
The magazine founder, editor, and boat designer was
Thomas Fleming Day, as mentioned by the author of this log post.
There is a detailed article about TFD and his work in
Wood Boat magazine No.43, Nov./Dec. 1981.

❖ BOATS WE KNEW ❖ WINDENTIDE ❖ by L.W. "Corkey" North

Chet North, Deer Harbor, Orcas Island.
Caulking his WINDENTIDE.

"The WINDENTIDE had been developing in Dad’s mind for years. When I joined the Navy, he set about gathering lumber and parts for her. I doubt I cost that much to keep, since they had taught me from very young, if there was something desired, it was up to me to get it, and so – bed-sheet sails, old boats, and vintage cars were my proud possessions.

      But the time had arrived for Dad to have a toy or two. He had built boats for other people for years and had tired of the hassle with people that really couldn’t afford the boat they wanted and somehow it became Dad’s responsibility to get them their desire.

      My uncle had done well fishing summers off the Washington coast for salmon and Dad had made a few trips out with him. So the WINDENTIDE now had an excuse for being built. For three years, Mother as much as Dad, worked at earning some income while scrounging for equipment and laboring on the boat; early, late, and weekends until an extreme tide at daylight the two of them launched that big hull into the morning sun.

      This was the summer of 1953 and I was in Korea, waiting out my last few months in the Navy. The photographs I received did little to sooth my homesickness. She was a trim thirty-nine feet and needed me, I could feel it."

 Thank you to L.W. North for sharing the above photograph and text.

❖ Bristol Bay Boat NO WAKE ❖

In 1957, the Alaska Packers Association of Blaine, WA., donated six Bristol Bay fishing boats to Camp Orkila [Orcas Island.] Three were power conversions and three were the original sailors with all the original sails. Walt Jones (waterfront manager) and Corkey North were able to get two engines running well after a couple of days and began the eight-hour tow back to camp. This involved a lot of pumping and hoping; they arrived after dark with the sailors half sunk.

The power boats were the first ones approved by the US Coast Guard for use by the YMCA camp. After considerable work on the Bristol Bay boats, they were able to replace the tin lifeboats previously used at camp.

The sailors were never very popular with the campers because of the slow speed and cumbersome rig; they had little appeal to the young campers.

In time, my dad Chet North retired from his boat building because of a heart condition. He traded a faster 16-ft outboard for hull # WN84P and had the power company move it to the part of the lot where he could work on remodeling the hull on his two-hour-per-day work schedule. He removed the centerboard and installed a used Gray 4-52 engine in the proper location. Just before he passed away in 1986 at age 80, he passed the boat on to his son, Corkey.

The engine was replaced by a rebuilt Gray-Alaska Lugger, which was an upgrade of the 4-52.
The hull was built in Astoria, OR, by Dyer Boats in 1929.

L. W. "Corkey" North
Deer Harbor, WA.

NO WAKE with skipper Corkey North
leaving San Juan Archipelago, with friends escorting.
Harney Channel heading for her new home
in Skagit County, summer 2013.