A Christmas Surprise for Tib –– From "Jello" Island and Lew Dodd

The Tib and Lew Dodd cabin 
Yellow Island, 
San Juan Archipelago, WA.
Ca. 1948.
Courtesy of their family.

"Tib" Van Order Dodd (1895-1989)
and Lew Dodd (1892-1960)
Yellow Island residents
Photo courtesy of their family.
Click image to enlarge.

A letter written by the former co-owner of Yellow Island, San Juan Archipelago, WA.

"Jello Island"
(is what one Swede calls it)
Deer Harbor, WA.
December 1957

"Dear –––––––––––,

Well, the Islands are about rolled up in mothballs until Springtime, I guess, and from all appearances anyway–for there are extremely few boats to be seen nowadays; the Channels are deserted except for the mailboat and the ferry.
        It is not really broad light in the morning until 7:30 and the sun (if any -and wherever seen) goes down behind the black San Juan Island hills at 4:15 PM. The whole Archipelago is slumbering and quiet in its usual winter hibernation so far as any comparison with June to October.
        For the first time since last July, accompanying Jack Tusler in his boat, we went to Deer Harbor, most of whose sparse population isn't very much in evidence; for, those who can afford it have folded their summer tents, so to speak, and have migrated to the South––the road from Kirk's to the store, black in the gloomy wet and little traveled, and at Norton's dock a single troller leaning wearily against the float as if utterly tired out from the summer's fishing, the essence of ennui!
        Blue smoke issues straight up from a few chimneys, and the forlorn old red cannery seems to stare vacantly upon the scene, which more than at any other time of year, resembles a small Port that once was and may never be again; deserted, forlorn, useless, abandoned; hopeless! Hard by, across the inlet, at the bridge, a forlorn sawmill no longer sings a tune, drift logs beachcombed, and red rust is King over all its metal machinery. The attitude which the whole hamlet has seemed to have acquired is one of extreme lassitude, and, perpetual waiting in a permeating forlorn hope that--well--"Something might occur someday; maybe." The place somehow manages to convey a very bleak empty and depressing picture as it sits on its sidehill, soggy, sodden, clammy, and damp--with its feet in the cold December sea. --Deer Harbor in winter! "The deserted village!"
        We are always glad to return to our Island from such a brooding atmosphere, for upon clearing the vicinity the forlornness and the lifelessness leave one as if awakening from an unrealistic dream.
        Back on our own Island, we are happy to pull the skiff up into its snug boathouse, shoulder the provisions, and climb the path to the bright, warm cabin where for so long as we have lived here we have been happy and content.
        There is never a dull or uninteresting day at our Island home and no two days are alike: for there is always something, yesterday Tib and I watched two otters hauled out on our East end. It was a sight seldom seen by even those who do live in the country, and we may never see such an interesting performance as they went through with no idea in their heads that two human beings were observing through binoculars every move they made.
        One reason that prompted me to drop you a line is because I wanted to (which is an excellent one, in my opinion!) Another reason is that I need Lloyd's advice:
        Recently I saw an "ad" in December National Geographic of Zenith's new Transistor Transoceanic radio (8 bands) etc. price advertised as $250. Lloyd, what do you think of this radio and do you deal with them?
        We are out here beyond television until they produce some kind of a battery set maybe––and even then if the programs don't get any better we wouldn't be interested. But, radio, a good one, yes, for it would give us worldwide contact everywhere, internationally––everywhere there are broadcasters. Ship to shore, aircraft, etc. How do these transistors stack up with the tube radios in performance? Do you think this new Zenith is a good buy at that price and could you buy one of them at any sort of a discount if you do not handle them?
        I've been toying with this zenith idea to surprise Tib for Christmas. (I'm 65 now and may not last too long.) I can manage to pay for something that should give us whatever is to be had in worldwide radio for some time to come. But before I make any move at all I'd like your candid opinion about this machine. Just what your knowledge and experience can tell me. I will certainly appreciate it.
        Tonight 8:00 PM we're having a hard westerly (about 40 mph) and the sea is noisy but the solid little cabin doesn't have a vibration in it, the kettle sings on the stove, the lamp is bright, and it a sweet, sweet home on an island in the San Juans far from the milling crowds and traffic, the fumes, and burning gasoline and the roar of trucks and trailers.
        Our sojourn in Bellingham this summer, after so many years away from the modern clatter and clutter taught us both to appreciate and love even more our peace and quiet, sweet air, unchlorinated water, clear running tides; and natural surroundings, the seabirds calling and soaring in the clear, clean sky! We are so thankful and grateful for it all. It is a good life.
        Our best wishes to you for a happy holiday season and we hope your year ahead will be a successful and contented one filled with whatever is GOOD and with whatever you most prefer."

Signed, Lew and Tib.

Another SPHS post of Yellow Island Dodd's can be seen HERE

Another SPHS post of Lew's sail on Gracie S around Vancouver Island, B.C.,                         can be seen HERE

And a post under the History section on the home page, for the 8,500 mile 

passage crewing the R.B. Brown schooner Ranger from Milwaukee, WI.  to Orcas Island in 1939, 

click HERE.

❖ Sea Story with Schooner GRACIE S. ❖ verbatim by Lew Dodd of Yellow Island.

Letterhead stationery of
Lew Dodd,
owner/resident of Yellow Island,
San Juan Archipelago, WA.
Letter sent to a mainland friend in 1954.
Click image to enlarge.
From the archives of the Saltwater People Historical Society©

Lew and his wife, Tib, longtime Orcas Islanders, purchased Yellow Island and retired there full-time in 1947. Lew wrote long, interesting letters to friends and family while he was snugged down and happy building a life on their private island. Written in longhand by Lew to some correspondents on the mainland, here is an excerpt from one letter dated 30 December 1954.

"...Several years ago, I went all around Vancouver Island on Ed Kennell's pilot schooner GRACIE S.*  We went into places that still are raw, undeveloped, wild, and about as they were many years ago. It is a wild region that West Coast, and it is anyone's guess of what will ever be made of it. One place we went into was Refuge Cove north of Nootka Island and west a bit. On the west side of the cove was quite a large Native village, canoes and skiffs hauled up in a long row. The men had rigged clothes lines running from the shanty-like homes to the tops of the tall fir trees and these lines resembled the masts of vessels dressed with code flags as on a special occasion. Every color of the rainbow in shirts, pants, dresses, underwear, ribbons, and whatever else those Natives used. On the opposite side of the nearby land-locked cove was a fish camp run by an Englishman who had seven children, who when lined up on deck, looked like animated treble musical scales and sounded like it also.
      This Englishman told us that the old Natives had said to him that our schooner was the largest vessel which had ever come this far into the cove and the only sailing vessel of such a size, in many, many years which had been at this place.
      On our second day, there were two very, very old Native men who came alongside in their canoe, which they tied to our rail, and then made signs they wished to come aboard. Once on deck, they moved slowly around, inspecting everything very closely and missing nothing. Their English was extremely limited, but their gestures were emphatic. All they kept saying to each other was: "beeeg sheep, beeeg sheep" and "Seelah! Seelah!" and nodding to each other in agreement. They believed we were an old-time sealing schooner and wanted to know "where come--Seattle?" Ugh--Seelah"; "Come Seattle, many long time ago! "Here!"
      So, you see, there are still Natives along that west coast of Vancouver Island who remember the pelagic sealing days.
      When we finally got down to Victoria, among the visitors who came aboard was a very tall, lean, sharp-faced man with piercing gray eyes and a general bearing of one who had known at first hand the sea. I was introduced to him and he turned out to be a Captain Todd, one of the last skippers of a pelagic sealing schooner sailing out of Victoria, shooting seals along the coasts of Japan before the International agreement was established outlawing this wholesale slaughter of the fur seal.
      On Orcas, when we first came there, lived a Captain Gale whose schooner, also a sealer, had been seized by the U.S. government. Just before his death, I think around 1934, the government reimbursed him for his loss. This came at a time too late to do him much good but his sister, Mrs. Madeline Curry, at about age 92, is still able to supply her few needs from what remains of the money refunded to Capt. Gale.
      So it can be seen we're not so very far removed in time from some of what happened when this Pacific Northwest was yet younger than we now know it. I shall never forget that evening spent listening intently to the first-hand accounts of the sealing days of Captain Todd of Victoria, B.C."
Lew Dodd.
With thanks to Ruthie for sharing the letter copies written by this retired man of the sea. 
* More about the pilot schooner GRACIE S can be seen on this Log HERE

Another post of the arrival of Tib and Lew Dodd to Yellow Island in 1947 can be viewed HERE.

❖ SCHOONER RANGER ❖ of Milwaukee and Deer Harbor, ORCAS ISLAND

Schooner RANGER
212407
Drawing courtesy of B. L. Brown.
Click to enlarge.

Auxiliary Schooner (Yacht) RANGER 
O.N. 212407
Designed by Thomas D. Bowes and Charles D. Mower, 
Naval Architects of Philadelphia.
Built by Henry B. Burger, Jr. Manitowoc, WI, in 1914.
The owner, R. B. Brown of Milwaukee, WI, and Deer Harbor, WA.

Dimensions listed on the Tonnage Admeasurement papers filed with the Dept of Commerce & Labor, 

27 June 1914:

Gross tonnage: 48
Net tonnage: 44
Reg. Length: 67' 
Tonnage Length: 74.8'
L. O. A: 77.6'
Reg. Beam: 17.2'
Reg. Depth: 8.2' (centerboard)
Spoon Bow, Square Transom
HP: 50-HP Wolverine.       

There is some incorrect information on the web regarding this vessel, including entries on the Woodenboat Forum; the data listed above is newly archived information, thanks to the helpful staff from the National Archives, Chicago. 
      After good times sailing the Great Lakes area, The RANGER sailed from Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1939, with the owner and a crew of seven friends, through the Chicago drainage canal to meet the Illinois River, down the Mississippi River, across the Gulf of Mexico to Kingston, Jamaica, then to Cristobal, to head for a transit of the Panama Canal, up the rugged west coast, safely to her new anchorage in front of "Arcady", the home of the skipper in Deer Harbor, WA. A total of 8,500 miles.

A segment of RANGER's
course from the home state 
of Wisconsin to the Gulf.
Ten days were spent at a shipyard 
in the heat of New Orleans.
Map courtesy of Wikipedia.

     

RANGER had a three-week layover
 at Kingston, Jamaica.
Something about tasting the rum and 
welcoming aboard an engine mechanic.

      Those on board for the long passage were the owner/skipper "R. B." Brown, "Doc" Earl Cilly, Bill Steinike, Jake DeBoer, radioman, Mr. Curtis, Johnny Findorff, cabin boy, Eddy Price, cook, and seaman Lew Dodd of Orcas Island. The last two mentioned each wrote separate accounts of the trip.
      With some good fortune, Lew Dodd's descriptive article was published in Pacific Motor Boat, January 1940. His name will be familiar to some readers from and interested in San Juan County life. Lew and his wife were known for building and retiring to a small, delightful cabin on Yellow Island in c. 1947, another intriguing story. ("Their" island is now owned by the Nature Conservancy.) Lew's 9-page article is included on this site as a "Page" and can be located on the home page.
     
      
WW II:
RANGER was used by the US Coast Guard in the waters of Washington State during the war. Through operator error, the vessel was wrecked on the rocks of San Juan Island, meaning her keel was broken. She was stuffed with empty barrels to keep her afloat for a passage to a shipyard. The barrels thrashed around the interior to demolish the fine woodwork. It is not clear in what condition she was in when released to the next private party.

1944:
H. M. Fierrell buys RANGER from the original owner, R. B. Brown, now of Deer Harbor, WA.
  
1949, Summer:
Ruth Brown chartered RANGER with skipper/owner, H. M. Fierrell, for her programs at Westward Ho Camp, Orcas Island, to substitute for WESTWARD HO, off sailing the TransPac Race.

1949, Winter:

RANGER 
(212407) 

owned by H. M. Fierrell in 1949.
Preparing for an adventure trip 

to the South Pacific,
Location: Queen City Yacht Club, 

Seattle, WA. 
Original photo from the archives 

of the Saltwater People Historical Society©

"Within 2 weeks, H. M. Fierrell, a 40-year-old Navy veteran, plans to head his schooner-rigged RANGER for South Pacific waters. 
      Fierrell has been interviewing crew for an expense-sharing cruise. "You have to be sure to get the right sort of men for a cruise like this," he declared.
      So far, he has lined up four men; he said he could take six more crew members. He figured it would cost each man about $500 for the six-month cruise.
      Fierrell is living aboard the RANGER at the Queen City Yacht Club until he sails for the South Pacific. He plans to return in six months to spend the summer running charter cruises in Puget Sound as he did last summer." 
This text in quotes, from The Seattle Times, 6 December 1949.

1952:
From a Seattle Times report of 14 May 1952, we learn that skipper/owner, H. M. Fierrell, and his wife were rescued at sea with 8 others from their schooner, ELOISE, c. 22 miles south of the Golden Gate, CA,  bound for an adventure trip to the South Seas. The USCG EWING reportedly towed the distressed, 1915-built schooner to San Francisco. The article states that Fierrell did not make it to the South Pacific in his previous schooner, RANGER.

2013:
We hear from Panama correspondents that RANGER is being restored in hopes she will be sailing for her centennial birthday in 2014.