❖ TENDER-TUG BERMUDA ❖

BERMUDA (center)
Showing off her lovely sheer,
location and date of photo unknown.
This image was kindly shared by 
Captain Lawrence Lowell "Larry" Crawford (1917-2011)
 a cousin to the Fowler clan,
 who grew up playing on the shores of Shaw Island.

The wooden cannery tender/tug BERMUDA was built at Hoffman Cove, Shaw Island, in 1908-1909, by boatbuilder Delbert E. Hoffman, who came to the San Juan Islands in the 1880s. The vessel was built for three island brothers, E.B. "Bert", Jr., F.E. "Gene," and William Fowler. 
      Local historians have not heard of BERMUDA ever leaving her home waters of the northwest.
      From the Master Carpenter's Certificate (MCC) filed with the federal government when the vessel owner chooses to register the new craft as a documented vessel, we learn when, where, and for whom BERMUDA was built. In an interview with one of Gene's sons, Captain Earl Fowler, late into his long life, it appeared easy for him to recollect the BERMUDA and the days his family was associated with her operation. For three commercial fishing seasons they hauled salmon for Apex Fish Cannery, owned and operated by cousin Lee Wakefield, in Anacortes, WA.
      

Tug BERMUDA and ship DOUAUMONT
Undated photo purchased from the PSMHS.
Click to enlarge.

BERMUDA was later sold to a bridge and dredging company that built bridges and engineered deep water dredging around the Sound. Several years later she was re-engined, giving up her 50-HP Troyer-Fox. She went out of registry sometime between the years 1938 and 1941. Earl Fowler, who was a lad of six when she was launched, remembers seeing her laying in Pt. Townsend when he was working on another Hoffman built tug, the EDNA.
      

BERMUDA
ON 206177
scan from an original photo
from the George Stillman family.

      Ninety years after launching, the above vintage photo of BERMUDA underway in local waters, showed up in the photo album of Earl's school buddy, George Stillman. Stillman was another Shaw Island native who "took to the boats," as a young man educated at the one room grade school.
      Thank you to Ivaloe Stillman Meyers and sister Mary Ellen Stillman Carpenter, descendants of pioneer families of Shaw Island, for sharing their knowledge of island history.
      These three images are the only known photos of the island-built BERMUDA. There are no known photos of the Hoffman yard on the south side of Shaw Island. Do you know of one? Could be a prize awarded.

1895: 
We know Hoffman was building as early as 1895 when he had just completed six new 22-ft  x 7.5-ft boats for Island Packing Co of Friday Harbor. They were described in the Islander  newspaper as "heavy strip-built with oak gunnels and washboards with a small mainsail only. They row very easily for a boat that size & run like a deer, under canvas, in a light breeze."

1901:
Hoffman built a tug, ARTHUR G. for Joseph S. Groll by commuting across the channel to Fisherman's Bay, Lopez Island during 1900, with launching the following February. Does anyone have a photo of this vessel??

BERMUDA
ON 206177
US Documentation:
47.15' x 11.8' x 4.7'
G.t. 14.70
N.t. 10
Launched with 50-HP Troyer-Fox gas engine.
Built during 1908 and 1909 by D.E. Hoffman (1870-1915,) Master Carpenter, [at Hoffman Cove,] Shaw WA.
Source of dimensions: MCC purchased from the National Archives, PNW, Seattle, WA. 

❖ GOLDEN FOREST ashore ❖

GOLDEN FOREST
217737
Aground Cape Ilktugitak, AK. 
Captain L. C. Drewson.
Original photo from the archives of S.P.H.S.©

One of the steamships engaged in Pacific trade purchased jointly by the Matson Navigation Co & American-Hawaiian Steamship Co and operated by a holding company known as Oceanic & Oriental Navigation Co. Approximately half operated in the Oriental trade and half in the Australia/New Zealand service. Service was maintained from Columbia River, BC, and Puget Sound ports, as well as from CA. (H.W. McCurdy's Marine History of the PNW.)

1929:
      The 5,658 t steamship GOLDEN FOREST stranded and was lost at Cape Ilktugitak on 5 September 1929. The ship had departed Akutan 30 August, bound for Victoria, BC, with 34 crew and 6,413 tons or $300,000 worth of cargo. Fog and strong currents were blamed for the casualty. 
Master L.C. Drewson:
      "Vessel struck rock at Avatak Island, AK on 24 July 1929, when bound from San Fran, CA to Yokohama, Japan. Had diverted course of ship to meet USS HAIDA at Unimak Pass on account of sick member of crew. Vessel was badly damaged and was being convoyed by steamer SALVAGE KING that had been sent up from Victoria for repairs. We were proceeding along the coast via Seward and Cape Spencer and thence via inside passage." SALVAGE KING and motor vessel took off crew of GOLDEN FOREST and took us to Kukak AK."
      The GOLDEN FOREST, valued at $300,000, was a total loss, as was her cargo. The vessel can still be seen on the rocks slowly rusting away at Cape Ilktugitak on the west side of the Shelikof Straits. Insurance was unknown by the master at the time of this casualty but another report was filed by the owners in San Francisco in October.
Source of data: USCG report of casualty 16 September 1929 at Seward.
Posted on Alaska Shipwrecks

❖ MOSQUITO FLEET

"The term 'Mosquito Fleet' may, to readers not familiar with the Puget Sound Country, suggest only very small craft. It was, however, a phrase universally employed by the people and publications of that section to differentiate the Sound steamers from ocean and coastwise fleet. Some of the inland ships were as large as the deep-sea vessels, but their trade placed them in the 'Mosquito Fleet.' The term enjoys the authenticity of tradition and long usage." 
Historian Gordon Newell 1951.

❖ LONG DRIFT OF THE STEAMER DORA ❖

S. S. DORA
157000
1880-1920
"Summing it all up there is
not a more slow,
staunch or doughty little craft
afloat on the waters
of the Pacific Ocean than
this little DORA." 
John E. Thwaites

John E. Thwaites was the mail clerk  
on board during the 63-day drift.
From the archives of the S.P.H.S.©
Clinton Betz Collection.

S. S. DORA
Built 1880 by Mathew Turner, San Francisco, CA.
112' x 27.2' x 13.2'. 
320 G.t, 217 N.t.
Crew: 13
Indicated HP: 80.
Compound single-screw engine, driven by boiler-produced steam
14 NHP (7.5knots) 
Full set of sails.
Coal bunkers and storage holds for at least 100 tons of cargo.
Lost: 1920.

"Purser, bring me a piece of paper! I want to make my will. This ship can't last much longer. All of us are doomed."
      N.H. Moses, Alaska fur buyer, one of the passengers of the little steamer DORA, helplessly adrift in the Pacific for many days in winter storms, was speaking to W. E. Springston, later of Seattle.

      "Don't try to be funny. How in the name of heaven are you going to get your will ashore after you write it? Do you expect to send it by seagull?"

      On a routine voyage to Western Alaska and the Aleutian Island villages, the DORA left Valdez, 27 Nov 1905. Heavy weather dogged the little vessel and the night of 30 Dec found her at Cold Bay. She went to Chignik Bay, but because of gales, could not make the dock, so she turned around. As she headed out to sea, rolling and pitching in the heavy comers, the steam pipe between the boiler and the engine broke, leaving the vessel without power.

      Then began a 63-day drift in the trackless Pacific of the little Alaska passenger ship, that carried her far out of the shipping lanes.

      Back and forth went the DORA, at the mercy of the elements. She wandered over the Gulf of Alaska; at one time she reached a point below the Columbia River.

      Provisions ran low and soon the DORA was desperately short of drinking water. A limited amount of water was doled out each day, with rain from the sagging boat-covers saved. Finally, the mail pouches were opened in search of newspapers and other reading material.

S.S. DORA 
ON 157000
Photo by Mail clerk/photographer
John E. Thwaites.
Click image to enlarge.
Original from the archives of the 
Saltwater People Historical Society©
                                                

      Would the wind ever change and give the little ship a chance to set a course for Cape Flattery? Would her distress signals be sighted before all aboard died of starvation?

      These were some of the questions being asked by the three passengers aboard. They included Moses, Hughie McGlashan and Bobby Gould. Hughie, age 17, and Bobby, age 11, were in care of the ship's officers, realized they were in danger of being lost.

      There was no wireless in those days, and strange as it may seem, not a vessel sighted the far-rambling DORA, that was carried in a zig-zag course by wind and wave for more than two months.

      Finally, the DORA was recorded in the list of missing ships.

      Then on 23 Feb 1906, the DORA arrived in Port Angeles, having made a voyage from off Kodiak Island under makeshift mainsail, foresail and staysail, rigged by the crew.

      Capt. Zim S. Moore, master, telephoned J.F. Trowbridge, general manager of the NW Steamship Co, owner of the DORA, telling him that the vessel was safe, and soon the Seattle waterfront was thrilled by the news.

       All aboard the DORA had been given up for lost, and Lloyd's of London was preparing to pay the insurance money to the owners of the vessel.

      With Capt. Moore and his officers was the well-known mail clerk and photographer, John E. Thwaites.

      Moore later lost his life when the steamship ADMIRAL SAMPSON was rammed and sunk by the PRINCESS VICTORIA in 1914, off Point-No-Point, Puget Sound. He went down with his ship.

      The DORA was repaired and returned to service, operating for NW Steamship Co. The famous little vessel ended her days on the shoals of Alert Bay, AK, where she beached 23 Dec 1920, after stranding on a reef off Noble Island.

S.S. DORA,
known as the Bull Terrier of Alaska.
Alert Bay, AK.
Wrecked 23 December 1920.
Another photo by her mail clerk, John E. Thwaites.
Original photo from the archives of S.P.H.S.©

       

The famous little DORA is gone, but the story of her strange experience will live on as one of the most interesting chapters of North Pacific shipping."

Above writing by R. H. "Skipper" Calkins. High Tide. Marine Digest. (1952.)

For further reading: well-researched and well-illustrated biography of the Alaska mariner, photographer, John E. Thwaites:
Goforth, J. Penelope 
Sailing the Mail in Alaska
The Maritime Years of Alaska Photographer John E. Thwaites,
1905-1912.
Anchorage, AK. Cybrrcat Productions. (2003)

❖ FOLLOWING THE CURVE OF TIME ❖

 Following the Curve of Time
Cathy Converse
Touch Wood Editions (2008)
Surrey, B.C. and Custer, WA.

"The Curve of Time written by M. Wylie Blanchet is one of my favorite books so I am very pleased that Cathy Converse has written a terrific biography about "Capi" Blanchet--captain of the CAPRICE, adventurer, mother and unique individual.
      Following The Curve of Time is well written and researched by an author who has also explored by boat the inside passage waterways of British Columbia. Having done some boating myself around the Gulf Islands and Desolation Sound I am very impressed that Capi and her children overcame the challenges of having spent the whole summer cruising aboard a 25-foot motor boat with 1 adult, 5 children and a dog.
      It is a testament to the beauty of the B.C. coastal waters, the spirit of Capi and her children, that they returned to go cruising every summer, for 12 years. Capi's love and memory for those summers resulted in the classic The Curve of Time.
      The Cathy Converse book is a wonderful biography of Capi Blanchet and I think would be enjoyed by anyone who appreciates the beauty of the B.C. Coast. I enjoyed the pictures (some taken by Capi herself) and the First Nations information. There is also navigational information that boater's will enjoy, including the extreme tide and currents in some areas, requiring precise navigation. Capi had to contend with these, as do boaters in the area today.
      Thanks to Following the Curve of Time there is now a biography about the author of The Curve of Time. Now if only a movie could be made. Katharine Hepburn would have made a wonderful on-screen Capi. Gosh, how about Cate Blanchet in the starring role. Blanchet playing the role of Blanchet! That's a movie I would like to see."
      Five Star Book review by Joyce for Amazon Books, 25 May 2008