❖ BOOK REVIEW ❖ THE CURVE OF TIME

One of the most visited posts on this Log is an abridged biography of M. Wylie 'Capi' Blanchet by author Edith Iglauer Daly, with permission from the publisher, Harbour Publishing. Link to post

Today we are updated by Allison Hart Lengyel with a review of the audio version of Blanchet's The Curve of Time, published by Post Hypnotic Press. This is Lengyel's fourth review for Saltwater People Historical Society; book reviews are easily accessed by viewing the search labels at the bottom of the Log.

I’m just a wild sea gypsy

Born of the wind spray

Restless of all that would hold me

Bidding me come and stay.

Safe in my heart I kept my dreams

And laughed the hard years through

Now before your eyes I bring them out

Softly uncover and spread them to view. 

-M. Wylie Blanchet

Wylie Blanchet turned many actual summers into a narrative of one apparent long season spent motoring about the Canadian Pacific Gulf Islands with five children, and sometimes a dog, in the family’s 25’ cedar cruiser. She and her husband had bought the boat together sometime after they came west from Toronto to British Columbia in 1921. But he went out on a solo trip one day in 1927 and disappeared; the boat was found bobbing off Knapp Island, without a captain.  It was not without a captain for long, as Blanchet surprised her eastern relations by choosing both to keep the boat and to remain in BC, home-schooling her children during the year in the little house they’d bought on Curteis Point, near Sidney on Vancouver Island, and spending June to October free and independent, exploring the inland sea’s island- and inlet-strewn waters. 

To pull off this feat of self-reliance, Blanchet had to be an able diagnostician of marine mechanical and electrical problems, ready to improvise with what was at hand or to make do, while mindful of the weather, the currents, the winds, and safe spots to anchor. A boat of that size—the Caprice’s beam was only 6’ 1/2’’—couldn’t hold enough food and water for six people for five months, so the family learned the locations of reliable freshwater waterfalls and streams and sources and seasons for forage food (huckleberries, thimble berries, trout, salmon, clams, crabs, apples). In the 1930s and 1940s, when the family’s travels took place, there were a few isolated outposts, points of civilization, where mail and replacement parts could be forwarded; fuel, matches, batteries, and coffee purchased. Blanchet also administered the family’s first aid and protected them all from black bears, cougars, and a few shady human characters met along the way. Most of the people the family encountered were friendly, harmless recluses. And although it’s hard to imagine now, for the most part there were no marinas, no game wardens, and few evident rules about catch limits or private property. 

The book Blanchet wrote in 1961 is now available in audio format, narrated by voice actor Heather Henderson, with a forward by Timothy Egan. Henderson does a good job of conveying Blanchet’s no-nonsense demeanor. As captain of her little boat and crew (a role that earned her the lifelong nickname “Capi”)—and often the only adult around for many miles—Blanchet had to be unflappable and accomplished in multiple practical skills. Yet lucky for her family—and for the audience of her story—she had a philosophical, poetic side, intensely curious about the natural world and full of insights linking this water world of dense trees and fog with the greater world of literature and ideas. 

My only criticism of the audio book—and this is a small one—is that Henderson lacks any sort of Canadian accent. Blanchet, born in 1891 in Lachine, Québec, surely would have had one. Henderson’s characterization of the children’s voices is also perhaps a bit unrealistic--the way someone who had never spent summers on a boat with small children might imagine them. [Full disclosure: this reviewer has three school-age children and a boat.] On the plus side, Henderson’s narrative is easy to understand, with careful elocution and unambiguous phrasing.

The title of the book comes from the writing of Belgian Maurice Maeterlinck, who compared time to a curve, from the apex of which one can see the past, the present, and the future. Blanchet had Maeterlinck aboard, as well as a copy of George Vancouver’s travel diary from his 18th-century voyages in the area. As the Blanchet family traveled about in apparent aimless wandering, spending long days swimming, drying their freshly washed clothes on the rocks, gathering berries and hiking, motoring down inlets and weathering storms, they were actually also following the  stops made by Vancouver and noting his observations along the way, visiting Indian villages and logging camps, noting the indigenous plants and animals, and learning the skills of navigation. 

Thanks to the motor car, Maeterlinck wrote in 1904, it has become possible for people to absorb “in one day, as many sights, as much landscape and sky, as would formerly have been granted to us in a whole lifetime” (Maeterlinck, “In an Automobile,” 1904). In similar fashion, touring the waters of the Gulf Islands in a motor boat, even a 25’ gas-powered cruiser, opened up a wide world of experience to Blanchet and her family and allowed them to become deeply acquainted with a place formerly comprehended at the pace of dugout canoes, sail power, and the occasional steamship.

“When was that we had watched them? Yesterday? A hundred years ago? Or just somewhere on that Curve of Time? Farther and farther into that Past we slipped. Down winding tortuous byways—strewn with reefs, fringed with kelp. Now and then, out of pity for our propeller, we poled our way through the cool, green shallows—slipping over the pointed groups of great starfish, all purple and red and blue; turning aside the rock cod swimming with the lazy tails; making the minnows wheel and dart in among the sea grapes. In other stretches herons disputed our right-of-way with raucous cries, and bald-headed eagles stared silently from their dead tree perches. Once a mink shrieked and dropped his fish to flee, but turned to scream and defy us. Perhaps, as Peter suggested, he was a mother one. We turned into more open water, flanked with bigger islands, higher hills. ‘Mummy! Mummy! A whale!’ shouted Jan, and almost directly ahead of us a grey whale blew and dived. ‘Two whales! Two whales!’ shrieked the whole crew, as a great black killer whale rose in hot pursuit, his spar fin shining in the sun. He smacked the water with his great flanged tail and dived after his prey—both heading directly our way. We were safe behind a reef before they rose again.” (Blanchet, The Curve of Time, p.75-76)

Thanks to the audio version of Blanchet’s classic, The Curve of Time, we can now listen in on those long-ago summers, experiencing as Maeterlinck said, the “landscape and sky” of a whole lifetime, at the speed of a motor boat and our automobile.

The Curve of Time, M. Wylie Blanchet

Unabridged, 7 hours, 24 minutes

2014 Post Hypnotic Press, Canada

❖ YACHT "A" Headed South ❖

Yacht "A",
San Juan Archipelago, WA.

Passing through this archipelago, was the 394-ft yacht "A," kindly recorded this week and shared by Blakely Islander, Lance A. Douglas.

      Russian banker and his wife, Audrey and Aleksandra Melnichenko, were cruising down from Ketchikan, AK, to Seattle, to refuel at Pier 90. 
      "A" was built by Blohm & Voss in Kiel, Germany. For more stats, she has her own Wikipedia page that can be seen here.

❖ S. G. SIMPSON ❖ Sternwheeler to Tug

Vintage postcard detail
Olympic Peninsula
postcard pub. by C. P. Johnston Co., Seattle, WA.
From the archives of S. P. H. S.©

"An array of the time-worn craft plying the Shelton run in the '80s and '90s would be an interesting sight today. The tri-weekly boats from Tacoma making all the way-stops included the ancient JOSEPHINE, MESSENGER, OTTER, and NELLIE. Later the more up-to-date CLARA BROWN, and for a brief period the smart MONTE CRISTO handled this trade. None of these packets were averse, when en route, to dropping a log tow out of the numerous shallow inlets to deep water tugs. This was accepted by the  occasional passenger, as a matter of course.
      All these steamers were stern wheelers, as was the pioneer on the direct Olympia-Shelton route, the WILLIE, operated by the Wiley Navigation Co. The similarity of names between owner and boat is but a coincidence. She was built for Capt. W. H. Ellis, intended for the Nooksack River and named for his son William. For the record, the WILLIE was 65-ft x 15-ft. On this meager hull was piled two full houses, topped by a pilot house on the boat deck.
      Her most noted characteristic was the constant list to port, unless one considers her lack of speed paramount. "Port list, long passage," is a sailor's maxim. The WILLIE surely lived up to this saying were the tides adverse. The whistle was enormous. In fact, the descriptive term "wheel and whistle" was coined for her long before the GREYHOUND made that appellation famous. That whistle by the way, is still in use [1948] on one of the few surviving steam tugs.
      In 1986, the WILLIE was succeeded by the larger and speedier (still with reservations) CITY OF SHELTON. Built for and operated by the Simpson Logging Co. interests, the SHELTON gave good service for ten years. 

S.G. SIMPSON
Photo pre 1910.
Vintage postcard from the archives of the S. P. H. S.©

      Then came the S. G. SIMPSON, without doubt the finest small stern wheeler ever on the Sound. She was built by Crawford & Reid of Tacoma from designs by Capt. Ed Gustafson, longtime master of the SHELTON.
      The new boat went into service in 1907. Her engines gave her a 15-mile speed, well above the average for her class. 
      Hammersly Inlet, better known as The Big Skookum, is an attractive waterway so the designer provided the SIMPSON with a neat observation cabin forward on the passenger deck. At that period the camps had three crews. One working, one coming and one going. You guessed it, the observation cabin became the "Bull Pen" for the loggers, with their caulk shoes and like gear. Her service was light, two round trips daily and except for the tricky shoal navigation between Arcadia and Shelton, the run was a sinecure.
      In 1922 land transportation had ruined the once prosperous trade, relegating the SIMPSON to service as a freighter with Tacoma as the northern terminal.
      Puget Sound Freight Lines took over the boat and route in 1926. Her excess power and fine lines made her unsuitable for freighting so the Freight Lines sold the SIMPSON two years later to Martin Tjerne and associates of Stanwood. 

E. G. ENGLISH
Original photo from the archives of the S. P. H. S.©

She was rebuilt by Harold Durham at Everett as the tugboat E. G. ENGLISH, again bearing the name of a well known pioneer logging operator. Her new service was even more limited, towing log rafts from the mouth of the Skagit River to Camano Island. 
Her length of 115-ft was a detriment in the narrow confines of Tom Moore Slough, where the logging company had their rafting grounds. Mr. Tjerne pioneered by having a dredger type spud fitted forward of the house. This innovation was a success and was later adopted by other streamers using the same waters. Progress, so called, again caught up with the ENGLISH (ex-SIMPSON.)
      In the early 1940s the business intermittent at best, could be better handled by smaller Diesel powered tugs. Ol' Scutt saw the pathetic E. G. ENGLISH recently abandoned and weatherworn on a lonely strip of beach, but still showing traces of the thoroughbred that she had been in her better days.
      Nearby were the bones of her predecessor, the even more historic LILY. Two fine old craft mouldering on to oblivion."
Pacific Motor Boat, August 1948.
For J.R.

      

❖ 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.

❖ CRUISING WITH THE CREW ❖ June Burn 1927

COMANCHE
Undated original photo from the Clinton Betz Collection,
from the archives of the S.P.H.S.©

"It was 6 o'clock and dark when the COMANCHE drew into the dock at Sekiu last night. 

SEKIU

The tide was exceedingly low so that a foot-wide, inch thick board that was serving duty as a gangplank, lay across the dock and the upper deck, on the level. In the middle of that board was a knot and every time a man came across her I expected to see him go wallowing down the long narrow way to the water below. But the board held till all the crew were ashore and another stouter one was substituted from the dock for me. But I wasn't sorry, I tell you, though when I saw the not very slender, smiling Indian woman who had braved that board, I was ashamed of myself that I had looked so worried that they had dug up a big plank for me. 
      After what seemed hours of unloading freight at Sekiu we steamed off to Neah Bay. I had wanted to see that historic village by daylight, but full moon would have served nearly as well if I could have stayed awake till we got there!

NEAH BAY
click image to enlarge.

      At Neah Bay is another logging camp and there a pulp plant to use the logs just as soon as they come down from the hills. I don't like to think, somehow, of hearty spruce and fir going into pulp when all over the hills lie logs fit for nothing else. Somebody is going to make a million dollars some of these days soon by inventing a way of getting into the hills with some grinding machinery to use the by-products of logging right there on the spot. 
      From Neah Bay to Seattle, I was the only passenger aboard the COMANCHE. What a good time I had getting acquainted with the crew! Captain Van Nieuwenhuise came from Rotterdam when he was 11 and he can remember old Holland vividly. He used to play on Whidbey Island, logging there, trying to farm a little, too I think, but longing for the sea all the time.
      Mr. Boyd, purser, is a Scotsman with an Irish twinkle in his eyes. Now, I was always frightened of pursers thinking them a hard boiled lot. I learned long ago that boat captains are all bark and no bite with a very soft heart underneath a necessary crust. If all pursers were like Mr. Boyd, I shall decide that they are deceivin' critters, too. In fact there is something about the sea that hardens men outside, softens them inside.
      After dinner during the long hours between Pt. Townsend and Seattle, everybody gathered around Mr. Sam Campbell, second engineer, maker of violins, to see how fiddles are carved out of hunks of wood. This mechanical genius has evolved and manufactured his own tools for making his fiddles, one of them being a darling tiny brass plane about the size of my thumb, curved to plow off microscopic shavings from Italian maple so as to form it into the back of the violin. One of his fiddles is made from Puget Sound maple and is more beautiful than the others, our maple having a gracious waving figure much more attractive than the straight zigzag grain of the Italian wood.
      Mr. Campbell spent ten years carving out a perfect ship only to have it stolen. He turned to violins for consolation, perhaps, and is beginning to turn out instruments of true, rich, vibrant tones.
      With another two or three days aboard the freighter who knows what other surprising people with surprising gifts might have been discovered? Many of the crew I didn't even see. The stoker might have turned out to be a poet; the chef, a painter; the deckhand, a sociologist!
      From Seattle by stage was a long comfortable way, the day disappearing across the San Juan islands as we drew near home. See you tomorrow."
Text by author June Burn, former San Juan County islander. 
Puget Soundings, 1927.