Worst Maritime disaster in NW history occurred 100 years ago today...

Lots of people may have never heard about it but along the shores of BC, Southeast Alaska and up into the Yukon Territory it's still kind of a big deal. The SS Princess Sophia went under on this date in 1918, and the most important detail besides the 367 souls lost was the fact that the ship could have easily been saved and languished 40 hours on Vanderbilt Reef north of Juneau before sinking.

There are lots of folk songs and commemorative plaques about the sinking. If you ever take an Inside Passage cruise you'll go right by the reef (it now has a light) and never know there's a ship underneath with the bodies of many of the dead.

LINK

quote:

---

This week four communities in the Pacific Northwest are preparing to mark the 100th anniversary of the worst maritime accident our region has ever seen.

Commemorative events in Victoria, B.C, Whitehorse, Yukon and Skagway and Juneau, Alaska, will remember the SS Princess Sophia and its estimated 367 passengers and crew who were all killed when disaster struck on Oct. 25, 1918.

The Canadian Pacific coastal passenger steamship ran aground on Vanderbilt Reef in Alaska’s Lynn Canal during a fierce snowstorm. It eventually sank into the icy waters, killing every soul onboard.

---

quote:

---

But instead of moving off, the storm intensified, and Sophia was stuck on the reef for 40 hours. In the early hours of its grounding, Sophia still had power, passengers were comfortable, and panic had yet to set in. But in its final hours desperate distress calls and SOS radiograms were dispatched from the bridge as the ship began to gradually slip off the reef. With the upper section of the hull sliced open from the collision with the reef, water rushed into its engine room and the ship quickly sank. High winds and a blinding snowstorm prevented the rescue ships from arriving until the next morning and everyone onboard perished.

“It was a perfect storm of events that came together to make this tragedy, with many communities in Yukon becoming isolated for many years afterwards and not fully recovering until 1942 when the Alaska Highway was built,” said Leverton, noting that Dawson City, Yukon lost 10 per cent of its population in the disaster.

---

The lone survivor was one oil soaked dog. Bodies that were able to be plucked from the waters are buried in Juneau's Evergreen Cemetary and in Vancouver BC. Along a windswept beach about 28 miles north of Downtown Juneau there's a commemorative marker, few folks outside of locals ever get out there to see it however.

Princess Sophia on the reef waiting rescue. The tidal range is severe, the winds were atrocious.




The reef today