Stranded

by Aaron Saunders

  On the roof of the chart room and the officer’s quarters, just aft of the wheelhouse, were more lifesaving conveyances. Known informally as “approved buoyancies,” these were largely kept on board as a last resort. Comprised of two copper cylinders filled with air, they could support twenty-six people if needed, and could be launched by simply throwing them down from the ship’s uppermost deck into the water. The drawback, particularly in the frigid waters of Alaska, is that these buoyancies were never intended to keep people dry, they were designed to act as a sort of mass flotation device, with ropes fitted to the two copper cylinders that could be held onto by swimmers in the water. Even if there had not been a storm battering the Princess Sophia, taking to the water in one of these during the fading days of October in Lynn Canal would have been tantamount to suicide.

  High atop Princess Sophia’s exposed boat deck, wrestling with the lifeboats was cold, difficult exercise for the ship’s crew. Near-blizzard conditions continued to obscure visibility, and high winds and heavy seas slammed into the ship with frightening regularity. Still, the crew — many of whom were little more than young men — worked diligently to prepare the boats and swing them out. During this time a few passengers likely wandered up on deck, but most probably retreated into the ship’s public rooms, where they would have been sheltered from the elements. A few hearty individuals may have gone one deck down, where a semi-enclosed promenade provided some protection from the driving snow.

  While this was taking place, Captain Locke summoned wireless operator David Robinson to send the call for help. Under Locke’s direction, Robinson first sent a wireless message to the United States radio station in Juneau via the ship Cedar, which was anchored near Juneau harbour. Identifying Princess Sophia by her call letters, VFI, the message stated they’d run aground on Vanderbilt Reef and asked any and all ships nearby to stop what they were doing and come to their aid. The time was fifteen minutes past two in the morning.

  Even in 1918 the wireless was still in its infancy, and sending a message directly to the line’s headquarters in Victoria — over 800 miles to the south — was simply not an option. Instead, Robinson had to rely on the Cedar and the wireless station in Juneau to send messages north to Skagway, where Lewis Johnston would soon be roused from his sleep, and south to the Canadian Pacific offices in Victoria.

  In the darkened city of Juneau lights started popping on in homes just after three in the morning as the incredible news began to filter in, much of it in quick, informal wireless conversations that would only be recorded in shorthand in the Juneau Radio log book. These initial messages were short and to the point. They also revealed something of the workload on board Princess Sophia at a time when it was unclear to what extent she’d been damaged in the collision. Robinson was keeping his words brief. One of the first messages to go out simply stated, “Princess Sophia on Vanderbilt Reef calling for help.” [1]

  Over the next hour, Robinson would tap out six separate variations of this message. At 2:55 a.m. the situation on board appeared to be worsening, with Robinson wiring the Juneau office that the ship was “pounding heavily and lowering boats.” [2]

  A Marconi operator at his post aboard the North German Lloyd liner Grosserkorfurst. Early shipboard wireless telegraphy was far from an exact science, and prone to dropouts and delays.

  Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-DIG-ggbain-03109.

  At least, getting the passengers into the lifeboats was the plan. Slowly, one at a time, Princess Sophia’s white lifeboats — weighing roughly 1,700 tons apiece — were swung out on their davits so that they extended over the side of the ship. Although their canvas covers remained on to protect them from the elements, they were ready to be embarked and lowered at a moment’s notice. But in the face of the storm that raged on unabated, they were beginning to look about as enticing as the buoyancy rafts secured to the roof of the officers’ quarters. Enveloped in total darkness and with the jagged rocks of Vanderbilt Reef immediately below the hull of the still-twisting ship, it was quickly becoming apparent that abandoning the Princess Sophia was not really an option at all.

  On land, Frank Lowle, Canadian Pacific’s agent in Juneau, was one of the first people to learn of the tragedy when his phone rang at 2:15 a.m. At first he almost didn’t quite believe what he was hearing; a quick look outside his window revealed the weather in Juneau to be overcast but fair. The conditions that the Princess Sophia had been battling all night had yet to reach the city.

  Hanging up, he rubbed the sleep from his eyes and mentally steeled himself for the start of a very long day. With over three hundred souls stranded on board the stricken vessel, Lowle knew that any rescue attempts would have to be mounted by a flotilla of smaller vessels. At this time of year the largest steamers that could have rendered assistance had the accident happened during the summer months had all gone south for the winter. There was one ship, however, that Lowle realized could help: the eighty-five-foot Peterson. She had just left Juneau the previous evening bound for Haines, Alaska, a small village on the western side of Lynn Canal just south of Skagway. Lowle picked the receiver back up and rang the up the cable office. He requested the operator immediately telegraph the cable office in Haines. Despite the early hour, Lowle had heard a rumour that the Marconi operator there frequently slept in the office, not far from his set.

  This innocuous action created yet another bizarre twist in what was already becoming an eventful Thursday morning. As it turned out the Marconi operator in Haines did not spend the night at the cable office, which was completely empty when the message from Juneau started to come in. For some inexplicable reason, at 2:45 a.m. in the morning on a cold October day, a passerby happened to be walking near the Marconi office when the telegraph from Juneau came through. The message coming through was bleak: “Princess Sophia ashore on Vanderbilt Reef, calling help; hasten Peterson to oblige Canadian Pacific Railway.”[3] Only twenty-five minutes after Lowle passed the message along from Juneau, the word was out. Princess Sophia was in danger of sinking.

  As if on cue, the Peterson came alongside in Haines. Her captain, Cornelius Stidham, immediately recruited two more crew members to help his existing complement of eight men, and had fifty extra blankets placed on board. History doesn’t record how exactly the good captain procured these items during these small hours of the day, but by 4:00 a.m. Peterson was manoeuvring away from the dock in Haines and back out into the turbulent waters of Lynn Canal. The operator in Haines wired back the news to Frank Lowle in Juneau: the Peterson was coming.

  Around the same time the Peterson set sail from Haines, help was also on the way from Juneau in the form of a small, sixty-five-foot mail boat called the Estebeth. Manned by Captain James Davis, the Estebeth was just four months old when she began her journey out of Juneau Harbor. She normally stuck to short mail and passenger runs between Juneau, Skagway, and the village of Sitka, located on the eastern side of Baranof Island near the Pacific Ocean. But if Captain Davis had qualms about pushing his new ship to her limits in a rescue attempt in bad weather, he kept his misgivings to himself. Although only licensed for thirty-five passengers, she could fit two hundred souls on board in a pinch. She would be the first of many vessels to leave Juneau Harbor in the hours before dawn that day.

  Much like Frank Lowle when he looked out his window earlier that morning, Captain Davis only saw softly falling snow on his departure from Juneau. The weather the Princess Sophia was being punished with seemed to not be an issue at all. That all changed once the Estebeth cleared the northernmost point of Douglas Island. Here, at the entrance to Lynn Canal, Davis got a taste of what the stricken ship was facing. Snowfall increased dramatically and a strong wind from the north slammed into the ship’s forward superstructure. Whipped up into a froth by the increasing wind, the heavy seas tossed the petite Estebeth. It took nearly six more hours of sailing through these conditions for her to reach the Princess Sophia.

  Other vessels were on the way, and would arri
ve earlier. At 5:45 a.m. Juneau Radio wired David Robinson on board the Princess Sophia. “Tell VFI [Princess Sophia] [that] agent says three boats should arrive there in thirty minutes. These can care for 200 passengers.” Robinson wired back almost immediately: “VFI [Princess Sophia] says there is danger of fuel tanks puncturing. Tide is rising and heavy sea running and strong wind on quarter. Stopped snowing.”[4]

  Four hours after running aground, this was the new challenge facing the Princess Sophia: whether or not the imminent high tide would force her off Vanderbilt Reef. Although the snow had let up and the fog that had enveloped them was finally beginning to lift, the wind and seas surrounding them remained as fearsome as ever. This concern filtered down to her passengers, most of whom were still huddled in the ships public rooms, strapped into their lifebelts. Fearing the worst, they began to make their way out on deck. For Captain Locke and his officers, how much damage the grounding had done to the ship’s hull was still unknown. During their inspections of the ship’s interior spaces it became clear she was not taking on water and her double-bottom hull had not been penetrated. This, however, was no safeguard against what might happen at high tide. As Army Private Auris McQueen noted, “It was thought she might pound her bottom out on the rocks.”[5]

  At six in the morning the tide hit its highest point. If anything, the increasing water level only managed to drive the wreck more firmly up on Vanderbilt Reef. The crashing of the waves against the hull and the horrifying sounds it created seemed to be lessening, and the weather was slowly starting to improve. Coupled with the assurances of Captain Locke and his officers and crew, most passengers began to calm down. Word had spread around the ship that other vessels were on their way, and most calculated that their situation seemed to be slowly improving. Many took off their lifebelts and conversed with each other, while card games broke out here and there using decks of Canadian Pacific-brand playing cards.

  Satisfied that they were stuck on the reef for some time to come, at 7:20 a.m. the first formal wireless message of the entire day was sent out. Relayed from Captain Locke aboard the Princes Sophia via the United States Radio Station in Juneau, its recipient was Canadian Pacific’s British Columbia coastal service superintendent, Captain James Troup.

  PRINCESS SOPHIA RAN ON VANDERBILT REEF LYNN CANAL AT 3 O’CLOCK SHIP NOT TAKING WATER AND WATER UNABLE TO BACK OFF AT HIGH WATER FRESH NORTHERLY WIND SHIP POUNDED ASSISTANCE ON WAY FROM JUNEAU. LOCKE.[6]

  In the wireless message the time is given as three in the morning. British Columbia was on Pacific Standard Time, which is one hour ahead of Alaskan Standard Time. Princess Sophia kept her clocks set to Pacific Standard Time, accounting for the difference. Unfortunately, wireless telegraphy was far from being an accurate science; the message sent to Captain Troup was received in Juneau at 7:20 a.m., but it wasn’t passed along to the Canadian Pacific offices in Victoria until 8:24 a.m. Captain Troup finally received the message at 9:11 a.m. — nearly two full hours after it had been sent from the Princess Sophia. The delays and limitations of the wireless would continue to be a source of frustration and confusion as the day progressed.

  Daylight — or what little ambient light could break through the suffocating greyness of the overcast skies — arrived just before eight in the morning. The snow had almost stopped, with just a few light flakes swirling about. The wind still pounded at the stern of the ship. Finally Captain Locke could see well enough to properly assess the damage to his ship.

  At 9:00 a.m. the Peterson arrived. At eighty-five feet, the Peterson was a steam-powered United States harbour boat, capable of making ten knots. But with no wireless apparatus on board, Stidham wasn’t able to communicate with the outside world; any outgoing messages would have to be passed on via the Princess Sophia herself.

  Princess Sophia looked different than the last time Stidham had laid eyes on her. Just the morning before, when Princess Sophia had docked in Juneau en route to Skagway, Captain Stidham had procured some much-needed oil from the ship. Looking at the massive Canadian Pacific ship perched high atop Vanderbilt Reef, the United States harbour boat captain tried to take it all in.

  His thoughts turned to taking Princess Sophia’s passengers off. In a pinch, he could cram around one hundred twenty-five people on board the sturdy little Peterson, and Stidham reckoned he could potentially squeeze one hundred and fifty on board if he got creative. He might have to; a quick scan of the cloudy horizon revealed his ship was the first, and only, ship on the scene.

  Ordering one of his crew, Kramer, to grab a megaphone, Stidham — who was at the helm of the Peterson and unable to leave his post — instructed him to hail the Princess Sophia. Almost immediately Captain Locke appeared on the open quarterdeck of his ship. Stidham instructed Kramer to ask Captain Locke if there was anything he could do. Through his own megaphone, Locke hollered back that he wanted the Peterson to remain close at hand. Leaning against the rail and gesturing down at the reef below his keel, Captain Locke responded that he was waiting for the tide to come in. At the moment, only Princess Sophia’s aftermost lifeboats could actually reach the water.

  As he came closer, Stidham noticed that a large number of passengers had gathered at the rail on Princess Sophia’s promenade and boat decks. Dressed warmly, they peered out at the new arrival from their perch. One of her lifeboats, the third from the bow on the starboard side with three or four men in it, had been completely lowered to the water and was bobbing up and down alongside the Princess Sophia, still attached to its lines. Stidham realized they were crew members inspecting the hull of the ship, though they seemed to be spending much of their time just trying to keep the small boat from crashing into the steel hull. Stidham glanced up again at the passengers on the decks above him. None said a word.

  Robert Wakely, Peterson’s engineer, also noticed the successfully lowered lifeboat. He was joined on deck by fellow crewmember Thomas Ryan, who noticed that Princess Sophia was leaking oil. The slick ran for well over a mile out from the wreck, and Ryan observed that the Canadian Pacific ship’s bow had been torn away at the keel.

  The two men looked at the lifeboat, resting calmly in the water with its small complement of crew members fussing about inside. Aside from the oil slick and the wind, conditions seemed good for a rescue attempt. The last seventy feet of the Princess Sophia’s hull rested comfortably in the water, off the reef. That should have been enough to get the aftermost lifeboats launched and to the rescue ships. But in a world still highly regulated by chain of command, neither Wakely nor Ryan said anything.

  Fireman Victor Shockway also thought the time had come to get passengers off the Princess Sophia, but he was also reluctant to voice his opinion to Captain Stidham. “I didn’t think it was any of my business,” he would later say. “I don’t go in where I ain’t got no business.”[7]

  Recognizing that Captain Locke wanted the tide to rise so he could properly get Princess Sophia’s lifeboats in the water all at once, Captain Stidham manoeuvred the Peterson around the stricken ship, planning to stay close by until the next high tide. Stidham discussed the situation with the rest of his crew and they agreed that conditions were optimal for a rescue. Hopefully they would still be at high tide.

  Despite there finally being the potential of rescue, many passengers were not so certain the danger was behind them. Even without the driving snow, the weather still bordered on atrocious, and the falling tide meant that more of Vanderbilt Reef — and the Princess Sophia — was being exposed.

  One skeptic was Jack Maskell. The resident of Dawson City was travelling back to England to be with his fiancée, Dorothy. Grabbing a pen and some of the stationery paper that Canadian Pacific supplied, he found himself a comfortable spot in the observation room and sat down. From there he could gaze through the oversized windows showcasing a panoramic view of the bow and the ship’s promenade deck. He twisted the pen around in his hand for a few moments. There was something about putting ink to paper that seemed to finalize things. Finally, he wrote:
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  To whom it may concern:

  Should anything happen to me, notify Eagle Lodge, Dawson. My insurance, finances and property I leave to my wife (who was to be) Miss Dorothy Burgess, 37 Smart St., Longsight, Manchester, England.[8]

  He signed the bottom of the page and noted the date in the top right-hand corner, adding “In Danger at Sea. Princess Sophia.” He looked at the paper again and thought of Dorothy, thousands of miles away. Folding the note into neat sections, he tucked it into the pocket of his jacket. Silently, he took a fresh piece of paper and penned a second letter. This one was longer and far more personal.

  Shipwrecked off Coast of Alaska. S.S. Princess Sophia. 24th Oct. 1918.

  My own dear sweetheart,

  I am writing this dear girl while the boat is in grave danger. We struck a rock last night which threw many from their berths, women rushed out in their night attire, some were crying, some too weak to move, but the life boats were soon swung out in all readiness, but owing to the storm would be madness to launch until there was hope for the ship, surrounding ships were notified by wireless and in three hours the first steamer came but cannot get near owing to the storm raging and the reef which we are on. There are now seven ships near. When the tide went down two thirds of the boat was high and dry. We are expecting the lights to go out any minute also the fires. The boat might go to pieces for the force of the waves are terrible, making awful noises on the side of the boat which has quite a list to port. No one is allowed to sleep, but believe me dear Dorrie it might have been much worse. Just here there is another big steamer coming. We struck the reef in a terrible snow storm. There is a life buoy marking the danger but the Captain was to port instead to starboard of buoy. I made my will this morning leaving everything to you my own true love and I want you to give £100 to my dear mother, £100 to my dear father, £100 to dear wee Jack and the balance of my estate (about £300) goes to you Dorrie dear. The Eagle Lodge will take care of my remains.[9]