The Wreck of the Princess Sophia

The worst shipwreck in Alaska's history took place on October 25, 1918.

The evening of October 23, the Canadian Pacific Railroad steamer Princess Sophia left Skagway Alaska for Juneau.  Early the next morning she ran aground on Vanderbilt reef, about 30 miles north of Juneau.  In the early evening of October 25, she sank. 

Although she sat on the reef for about 40 hours, her crew and passengers were never taken off and all died.  There were over 350 men, women, and children on board.

The Sophia sank in Alaskan waters, but she was a Canadian ship, and a large proportion of her passengers were residents of Canada's Yukon, heading south for the winter.  In 1918 the gold rush to the Yukon's Klondike was long over.  The Yukon had since settled down.  Each fall, a large part of the non-Native population emptied out of the territory.  Residents could come up the Yukon on stern paddlewheelers to the head of navigation at Whitehorse.  There they could take a train to the port at Skagway, and catch a ship south, through Southeast Alaska's Inside Passage.

Here's a shot of the Sophia in happier days.

Source: University of Alaska, Anchorage

The Sophia left Skagway about 10 PM on the 23d.  The first 60 miles of the route south from Skagway run through a long fjord.  A snowstorm overtook her shortly after she left Skagway, and visibility was poor. 

Despite the storm, she steamed south at her normal speed, probably averaging about 11 knots.  The captain and the pilot would have navigated by compass bearings from known landmarks and, in part, by blowing the whistle and timing the echos from the surrounding mountains.

At some point they apparently made a mistake and deviated too far to the west of the normal route.

About 2 AM on the 24th, she ran aground on Vanderbilt Reef.  The reef was a flat surface about a half acre in area.  It was largely covered by water at high tide, but at low tide much of it could rise several feet out of the water.  The Sophia came to rest sitting solidly on the reef.

This picture was taken late in the morning of the 24th - about 9 or 10 hours after the Sophia ran aground - by the captain of one of the first vessels responding to her distress call.  This was one of several small vessels responding from the nearby communities of Juneau and Haines.  One of the lifeboats is partly lowered.  This may have been an effort by the captain to give the crew an opportunity to check the condition of the hull.

Source: Alaska State Library.  Historical Collections

Although the Sophia would sit on Vanderbilt reef for about 40 hours, her captain decided not to transfer his passengers and crew to the small vessels that responded immediately.  He was probably dissuaded by the rough water, poor visibility, the small size of the rescue boats on hand, and the high risk that an evacuation would lead to loss of life.  Much depended on a favorable combination of tides, weather, daylight, and rescue vessel availability.  At low tide, the Sophia was surrounded by rock, and much of the rest of the time, by shallow but rough water breaking over the rock.  Lifeboats could only be launched successfully when the tide was reasonably high.  At least one attempt to rig a breeches buoy failed.  Perhaps the captain felt that the Sophia was so firmly grounded, that there was little risk, and that he could wait for better weather and larger rescue craft.

This photo was made on the 24th:

Source: Alaska State Library. Historical Collections

This one was made on the morning of the 25th:

Source: Alaska State Library.  Historical Collections

The storm got worse on the 25th.  The vessels that had responded to assist the Sophia were forced to withdraw to protected areas behind nearby islands.  The sun set by about 4:30.    The Sophia was left alone, in the dark.

At 4:50, and again at 5:20 the Sophia's 20 year old radio operator broadcast messages for help.  "Ship foundering on reef, come at once...For God's sake hurry...the water is coming into my room...you talk to me so I know you are coming..."

A few minutes before 4:50 p.m., when Robinson wired his first desperate message to the Cedar, the final disaster struck.  For nearly forty hours the Princess Sophia had sat firmly wedged on Vanderbilt Reef, her stern pointing approximately north into the wind and her bow in the general direction of Juneau.  Now the wind and waves began to lift the stern off the reef.  Under their force the Sophia rose, then swung slowly around in a 180-degree turn, as if on a pivot.  The weight of the ship as it turned ground the rocks beneath it 'white...as smooth as a silver dollar'.  Now her bow faced up the channel, into the storm, and the Princess Sophia began inexorably to move off the reef into deep water.  As she began to turn, passengers and crew ran to the lifeboats.  Several were launched, others partly lowered, and a number of passengers clambered into them.

Slowly the Sophia turned and then, twisting and grinding, slid backwards off the reef.  The rocks ripped gaping holes in her hull, tearing out virtually her entire bottom.  Heavy bunker oil poured into the sea and frigid water rushed in, flooding the engine and boiler rooms.  The boilers exploded, devastating the lower decks.  A number of passengers who had sheltered from the storm below decks were killed by the explosion and the flying debris.  Portholes were shattered, allowing the sea to enter even faster.  The explosion pushed upwards as well, blowing off part of the deck.  As the ship settled and began to slide beneath the waves, the wounds in her hull releasing thousands of gallons of oil into the sea, the dark, cold waters of Lynn Canal reached up to claim their victims.  In a matter of minutes - just long enough for Robinson to send his last panicked message - the water had reached the pilot house.  And then the entire ship was engulfed.  (Coates and Morrison, page 94).

Most of the watches that were found were stopped at about 5:50 PM. 

There were no survivors.  The evidence suggests that the cause of death for many - for 160 of the first 162 bodies brought to Juneau - was suffocation in the oil. 

One of the mysteries of the wreck is that many of the bodies - over eighty - were found below decks.  People were found in staterooms, in washrooms, in other interior compartments, in bed.  It looks like the disaster took place over a period of an hour - why didn't they try to save themselves?

This picture, taken by a photographer standing on the reef at low tide, shows the forward cargo mast of the Sophia. The buoy can also be seen in the photograph above.  The weather was so bad the night of the 25th, that none of the small vessels standing by were able to reach the site until the following morning.   This is what they would have seen, although the weather was not as good.

Source: Alaska State Library. Historical Collections.

The recovery of the bodies began the morning of the 26th, although for about three hours the boats that were searching couldn't find anything in the poor weather.  The first body was recovered by noon.  Over the next weeks teams of men combed the local waters, and particularly the shorelines of the many nearby islands.  The territorial governor himself joined the teams, walking the beaches and probing the snow drifts for bodies.

The bodies were brought to Juneau.

...Between the last few days of October and the middle of November, nearly two hundred bodies were brought in from the sea, all of which had to be identified and prepared for burial.  Juneau responded magnificently.  Under the direction of Governor Riggs...an organization was set up to handle the job that involved practically every adult in town.

Most of the bodies were delivered to Juneau in the first week after the disaster - about 180 by 1 November.  During that time the residents, almost all volunteers, were formed into teams that would work almost like an assembly line.  Several teams were on call twenty-four hours a day to meet ships at the dock, take bodies off, and carry them to a warehouse set aside as a morgue; another team guarded this warehouse round the clock.  There the bodies were handed over to four businessmen and given numbers for identification purposes, then searched for personal effects; these were catalogued by another four businessmen, put under the care of the coroner, Judge H.L. Burton, and sent to the vaults of Behrend's Bank.  Most of the victims were readily identified... The lifebelts were cut off those who were wearing them, and clothes were removed - by a male team for male victims and a female team for women and children - and cleaned as much as possible.   The bodies were carefully examined for identification marks, then given to another team, who scrubbed them thoroughly with gasoline.  This task was made particularly unpleasant by the state of the bodies, many of which were so covered with oil that when "first brought in [they] could not be recognized as human bodies at all...

Once they had been cleaned, most of the bodies were embalmed... The bodies were then ready for burial locally, or for shipment south...  (Coates and Morrison, Page 114-115).

The account in this post follows The Sinking of the Princess Sophia. Taking the North Down With Her.  by Ken Coates and Bill Morrison. (University of Alaska Press, 1991).  Coates and Morrison are professional historians and they've written a carefully researched, and readable, book.  I've focused this post on the wreck and on Juneau's role in the recovery of the bodies.  Coates and Morrison cover many more topics, and describe the broader significance of the wreck in northern history - note their subtitle: "Taking the North Down With her."  The Yukon was a small community in 1918, and it lost a lot of its human capital in this wreck.  The photos are from the Alaska State Library and University of Alaska "SLED" on-line digital library. 

The Sophia is still next to Vanderbilt Reef.  The wreck is a popular spot for divers.  I understand that the ship has collapsed in on itself quite a bit.  When I was a scoutmaster, our troop would often camp on the shorelines of the mainland and islands, to the south of the location of the wreck.  The story of the Sophia was a good one to tell at shoreline campfires in the evening.

Edit: June 19, 2009 - revised order to two photographs to correct dates.  Typo corrected.

Comments

[marnie rasmussen]

My name is Marnie Rasmussen, and i am in the 7th grade. I am doing a history day project on the wreck of princess sophia. I just LOVE your website and i was wondering if you could email me any more possible information you have on sophia. Any of info, or other good websites would be very helpful. Please get back to me as soon as possible. Remember, my email is [email protected]. Thank you for your time, and it would be a great advantage if you could help me. Thanks!!

Sincerely,
Marnie Rasmussen, 7th Grade student at Haines Middle School.

[Hannah]

Hey, I'm doing a project on the Princess Sophia, actually with Marnie. She told me that she got some good information off your site. Thank you.
-Hannah

[John Doris]

My great-great-uncle Michael Doris was on the Princess Sophia. He was part of the crew and came from County Donegal in Ireland, though he had been living for years in Scotland before he started work on the Princess Sophia. It's a fascinating story and I enjoyed the site.

[jared]

my great grandpa was on the ship but died.it makes me sad.

[Grant]

A great recollection of events. One of my best friend went diving there. He badly damaged his leg and had to give up diving.

[Dee Longenbaugh]

Can you tell me anything about the dog that supposedly survived the wreck?
Thank you.

[Jessica]

Thank you very much for this account of the sinking of the Princess Sophia. I just discovered this weekend that my maternal great-grandmother's sister (along with that woman's husband and two children), who hailed from Dawson City, perished in the wreck, and am now striving to find out as much information about this maritime tragedy as possible.

Thanks again & have a wonderful weekend,
Jessica

[Rodger Zink]

I have a life preserver from the princess sophia...My old friend found it on the shore..I like to take a picture and post it sometime....

[Dan Schloss]

Hello my name is Dan Schloss. My video production company is Echo Media Productions in Modesto, California. I am starting my research on the Princess Sophia for the purpose of shooting a documentary about the ship. I would enjoy hearing from those who are family members, of passengers and crew. This is just the preliminary start, my co-producer and I are intrested in learning more. I can be reached at [email protected]

Thanks
Dan

[Al]

Hello,

You can find on the National Film Board of Canada's website a very good documentary on the sinking of the Princess Sophia. The movie is available on DVD.

The Sinking of the Princess Sophia - 2004 - 47 min

[Al]

Hi everyone,

The documentary on the Princess Sophia, produced by the NFB, will be broadcasted August 17th 2010 on the canadian Documentary Channel, at 10 : 00 pm.

[Constance Marie Bennett]

Thanks very much for the information from Dan Schloss at Echo Media Productions, and the Canadian Documentary Channel.
Constance Marie Bennett. My Uncle Howard lost his life on the Princess Sophia.

[Daniel Halen]

Hello

Thank you for writing this article and bring to the forefront the magnitude of this disaster that is rarely mentioned nowadays. I've sailed to Juneau from Skagway in a 30 ft boat sailboat several years ago on my first trip to Juneau and went directly beside the Vanderbilt Reef. It was a moving experience to say the least and it caused me to write a song about this disaster on the only piece of paper available at the time which was a cereal box carton. I didn't think much of it for a few days but later revisited it and tried my best to tell this story an correctly as possible in the lyrics. I believe it is historically correct and certainly appreciate reading your article to confirm the chronology of the event. The song is aptly titled "Princess Sophia" and is available at my website at www.danielhalen.com as well as on ITunes and the like. I wish I knew about the movie that just came out as I would have offered it to the production company to use in the film. With your permission, I would appreciate linking your article to my website since it is one of the best articles I have come across. Best regards. Daniel Halen

[Mitzi Reynolds]

I am doing research on the cemetery in Fort Yukon, and in St Michaels Episcopal Church here, there is a large painting dedicated to a woman (a nurse here, going out for more training) who perished on the ship. Her husband (of seven weeks) was also on the ship. He was the "half breed" Walter, who traveled with Hudson Stuck. Those familiar with Stuck's writing will "know" Walter well. Stuck's book "A winter Circuit of our Arctic Coast..." is dedicated to Walter. Does anyone know where we can find a complete list of the passengers?
Thank you for this posting. Aren't we lucky to be living in a time where information is so accessible?!

[sophia]

hay!!!!
My name is sophia and my facebook name is princess Sophia and i just searched my name up and this came up i was really surprised so i read this whole thing WOW!!
-Sophia =)