❖ ORLAND OLSON AND HIS SCHOONER ❖ BY LEO MAHAN

Model of the schooner C. S. Holmes
Carved by Mr. Orland Olson
that he began in ca. 1934.
He is now 101 years of age.

Sail Ahoy! Avast the halyards! Come about! 

Batten down the hatches!

A story of Orland Olson and his Boat

There I, Orland Olson, was standing on the deck of the schooner, C. S. Holmes. I had seen her many times across the water in Seattle at the Foss Tug and Barge facility on Lake Washington Ship Canal. I had fallen in love with what I saw. I decided to make a model of this schooner and finally got enough courage to go to the dock where she was moored. I brought paper and pencil with me to make sketches of her and to get some dimensions of her size. I was sketching away when suddenly, a voice called out from the ship. It turned out to be the captain, Captain John Backland. He saw me standing on the dock, with pencil in hand, and invited me to come aboard to get a closer look at what was here. I tell you, my heart skipped a beat at the invitation and I hastened aboard. Then, for a moment, in my mind's eye, I could hear sounds like you see in the title above–the captain's orders bellowing across the deck. At that moment I envisioned myself as one of the shipmates. (Later when I suggested to my parents about becoming a sailor they put the brakes on that idea-and, boy, I'm glad.)
      Having drawings and details now of the ship to guide me I was ready to begin on the model. I started when I was 15 years old which would put it about 1934. My father got me a piece of straight-grained cedar, some 30-inches long and I started whittling away. At about the same time, I had met and was going with Phoebe, who became my wife. We had this thing where we would go to church and then would come back to the house. I would carve away and she was content to watch and give advice. I finished the hull, laid in the decking, put on the sails that my mom had made, and finished the rigging. Now, about 5 years later came the time to launch it. I put it in the water at what was the Golden Gardens Pond by the Sound. It was a thing of beauty, a joy to behold as the wind filled the sails and moved swiftly through the waters just like the one she was modeled after--and I was her captain!
      Life goes on. You know how it is. Phoebe and I married. We moved from place to place, job to job, house to house. The model was upstairs at times and then in the basement, never unloved––but time takes a toll on boats as well as humans. We made the move to Cristwood and the one thing my son wanted to keep was the boat. 

Orland Olson
Restoration of the C. S. Holmes
Congratulations!!

So I  brought it here and have been working at restoring it and will pass it on to him. There have been many hours of pleasure in refitting it. Making over 100 grommets to hold the sails in place, (my daughter-in-law made them out of nylon)--remembering the pulleys I made out of flattened buckshot. Ah, yes, she is the beauty that you can see in the lobby area by the dining room. The plaque tells the specifics of this marvelous schooner, built in 1893; it sailed to the Arctic, the South Pole, and the Fiji Islands carrying lumber, sealskins, and salted cod among many other items. She set a record for sailing from San Diego to Marrowstone Island in the upper Sound in 4 1/2 days."








Written by Leo Mahan.
May 2006.
Cristwood Courier
Submitted to Saltwater People by Orland's grandson, Rich Olson.  
Thanks to all of you for this great story.

❖ 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.©

❖ 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.