SS Princess Sophia

The Inside Passage

Beginning in 1901, Canadian Pacific Railway ran a line of steamships on the west coast of Canada and the southeast coast of Alaska. The route from Victoria, BC and Vancouver, BC ran through the winding channels and fjords along the coast, stopping at the principal towns for passengers, cargo, and mail. This route is still important today and is called the Inside Passage. Major ports of call along the Inside Passage include Prince Rupert, BC; Alert Bay, BC; Wrangell, AK; Ketchikan, AK; Juneau, AK; and Skagway, AK.

The coastal liner

Many different types of vessels navigated the Inside Passage, but the dominant type on longer routes was the "coastal liner". A coastal liner was a vessel which if necessary could withstand severe ocean conditions, but in general was expected to operate in relatively protected coastal waters. For example, as a coastal liner, Princess Sophia would only be licensed to carry passengers within 50 miles of the coastline. Coastal liners carried both passengers and freight, and were often the only link that isolated coastal communities had with the outside world. Originally coastal liners were built of wood, and continued to be so built until well after the time when ocean liners had moved to iron and then steel construction. After several shipwrecks in the Inside Passage and other areas of the Pacific Northwest showed the weakness of wooden hulls, CPR switched over to steel construction for all new vessels.

Princess Sophia was also called a "pocket liner" because she offered amenities like a great ocean liner, but on a smaller scale. The ship was part of the CPR "Princess fleet," which was composed of ships having names which began with the title "Princess".

Design and construction

Princess Sophia was a steamship of 2,320 tons gross and 1,466 tons net register, built by Bow, McLachlan and Company at Paisley, Scotland. A strong, durable vessel, she was built of steel with a double hull. Princess Sophia was capable of handling more than just the Inside Passage, as her use on the stormy west coast of Vancouver Island demonstrated. Princess Sophia was equipped with wireless communications and full electric lighting. The ship was launched in November 1911 and completed in 1912. She was brought around Cape Horn by Captain Albert Adolphus Lindgren (1862-1916), who had also brought two other CPR coastal liners, SS Princess Adelaide and SS Princess May, out from Scotland on the same route. As built, Princess Sophia burned coal; however, the vessel was converted to oil fuel shortly after arrival in British Columbia. While not as luxurious as her fleet-mates serving the Pacific Northwest, Princess Sophia was comfortable throughout, particularly in first class. She had a forward observation lounge panelled in maple, a social hall with a piano for first-class passengers, and a 112-seat dining room with large windows for observing the coastal scenery. At the time of her sinking, Captain Leonard Locke (1852–1918), commanded her, with Captain Jeremiah Shaw (1875–1918) as second in command.

Routes

On arrival Princess Sophia was put on the route from Victoria to Prince Rupert, BC. The next summer CPR assigned Princess Sophia to run once every two weeks from Victoria to Skagway, Alaska, alternating with Princess May, and stopping in Prince Rupert along the way. Occasionally Princess Sophia was diverted to other routes, such as an excursion to Bellingham, Washington. In 1914 the Great War began and with Canada as a participant, early wartime economic disruption resulted in a sharp decline of business for the CPR fleet, and a number of vessels, including Princess Sophia were temporarily taken out of service by November 1914. Princess Sophia and other CPR vessels transported troops raised for service in Europe.

Last voyage

On 23 October 1918, Princess Sophia departed Skagway, Alaska, at 22:10, more than three hours behind schedule. She was due to stop at Juneau and Wrangell, Alaska, on the 24th; Ketchikan, Alaska, and Prince Rupert, British Columbia, on the 25th; Alert Bay, British Columbia, on the 26th; and Vancouver, British Columbia, on the 27th. On board were 75 crew and about 268 passengers, including families of men serving overseas in the war, miners, and crews of sternwheelers that had finished operations for the winter. Fifty women and children were on the passenger list. Four hours after leaving Skagway, while proceeding south down Lynn Canal, the steamship encountered heavy blinding snow driven by a strong and rising northwest wind.

Vanderbilt Reef

Ahead of Princess Sophia lay a rock in Lynn Canal called Vanderbilt Reef. At high tide the rock might be awash or almost invisible under swells. At low tide it looked like a low table, with its highest point standing 12 feet above the water at extreme low tide. Vanderbilt Reef was in fact the tip of an underwater mountain that rose 1,000 ft (305 m) from the bottom of Lynn Canal. The channel at this point was about 6.5 miles wide. The presence of the reef narrowed the main navigation channel to 2.5 miles on the east side of the reef. The area is an extremely dangerous one for ships. It has deep waters with strong currents, rocky cliff faces, and narrow fjords. Tides regularly bring ships dangerously close to the shore. In bad weather, winds in the Lynn Canal quickly become gales.

Navigation aids

This image shows the second lighthouse, built in the 1930s. Vanderbilt Reef itself was marked with an unlit buoy, which of course would have been invisible at night. There was a manned lighthouse at Sentinel Island about 4 miles to the south. The light station on Sentinel Island had an area of sheltered water that was used for the station's wharf. Princess Sophia passed another manned light station at Eldred Rock, the Eldred Rock Light, 30 miles south of Skagway. Keepers at both light stations kept weather logs, which became useful later in reconstructing the events of the next two days. The dock at Sentinel Island was used as a staging point by the vessels attempting rescue of the Princess Sophia on 24 and 25 October 1918.

Grounding

Heading south through Lynn Canal, Princess Sophia drifted about 1.25 miles off course, and at 02:00 on 24 October 1918, Princess Sophia struck ground hard on Vanderbilt Reef, 54 miles south of Skagway. A letter later recovered from the body of a passenger, Signal Corps Private Auris W. McQueen (1883–1918), described the scene on board just after the grounding: "Two women fainted and one of them got herself into a black evening dress and didn't worry about who saw her putting it on. Some of the men, too, kept life preservers on for an hour or so and seemed to think there was no chance for us."

First distress call sent

The wireless operator on Princess Sophia sent out a distress call immediately. Wireless was weak in those days. The distress signal could not reach much farther than Juneau. The message did reach Juneau however, and by 2:15am the local CPR shipping agent was awakened with the news. He immediately began organizing a rescue flotilla from the boats in the harbor.

Stranded on the reef

High tide came at 06:00 on 24 October. The wind had lessened, but Princess Sophia was still stuck fast on the reef. Low tide came at about noon. The wind and waves forced Princess Sophia even farther up onto the reef, but fortunately the vessel's double hull was not breached. At low tide on the reef the entire hull of Princess Sophia was completely out of the water. The barometer was rising, which indicated a possible improvement in the weather. With the next high tide at 16:00, and the seas so rough that any evacuation would be hazardous, Locke chose to wait to see if he could get the vessel off. This proved impossible. Without a tug, or more likely two or three tugs, Princess Sophia could never be taken off the reef. Worse yet, the passengers could not be evacuated from the vessel without life-threatening danger. At low tide Princess Sophia was surrounded on both sides by exposed rock. At high tide, the rock was awash, but the swells were such that a lifeboat would strike the rocks as the waves pounded up and down.

Similar wrecks

While there had been many shipwrecks and groundings over the years, and it was the rare vessel that did not run aground or have some problem of this nature, two shipwrecks would have been foremost in the minds of Captain Locke and his officers, as well as other senior captains and officers among the rescue vessels, like Captains Ledbetter of Cedar and Miller of the King and Winge. These two wrecks, of Clallam in 1904 and Princess May in 1910, showed well the dilemma faced by Captain Locke in making a decision whether to evacuate Princess Sophia.

In fine weather and smooth seas on 5 August 1910, Princess May, another CPR steamship, grounded on Sentinel Island within sight of Vanderbilt Reef. All aboard were evacuated to the nearby light station, and the vessel itself was later removed from the rock with relatively minor damage. It was Princess May that CPR dispatched on hearing of the grounding of Princess Sophia to pick up her passengers who they presumed would be soon evacuated. While Princess May grounding had been in early August, and not late October, still there were other vessels with Princess Sophia grounding and the stranded ship seemed to be secure.

The disaster of Clallam showed the dangers of a premature evacuation of people from a vessel into lifeboats. Clallam, a new vessel when she foundered, was sunk in a storm on what should have been an ordinary voyage across the Strait of Juan de Fuca to Victoria, British Columbia. Clallam (168 feet, 657 tons), was a smaller vessel than Sophia and built of wood. Like Princess Sophia, Clallam was driven by a single propeller turned by a compound steam engine. En route to Victoria BC on 8 January 1904, Clallam, under the command of Capt. George Roberts (b1849), encountered severe weather conditions. At about 3:30 p.m., with water rising on board apparently from a broken porthole and improper pumping procedures, Clallam seemed as if it would soon sink. Captain Roberts ordered the lifeboats lowered, and into them placed mostly women and children. All three boats capsized or failed to properly launch, drowning all 54 people aboard them. Clallam stayed afloat long enough for rescue vessels to reach her and evacuate the people left on board.

Decision not to evacuate

Locke warned off James Davis, captain of the fishing vessel Estebeth, who attempted and then abandoned an effort to reach Sophia in a skiff. Davis moored his vessel by tying up to the Vanderbilt Reef marker buoy, which was then in the lee of Princess Sophia and protected from the worst force of the weather. The desperation of the situation was obvious to Davis and the other captains of the small boats at the scene. Princess Sophia had been seriously damaged striking the reef, with a hole in her bow that water ran in and out of at a rate that Davis estimated at 200 or 300 gallons per minute. With no apparent way to evacuate passengers, and Princess Sophia stuck fast on the reef, the only thing that Davis and the other rescue boats could do was to wait to see if the weather would moderate enough to attempt an evacuation. Captain Locke, of Sophia was confident enough of his own vessel's safety to tell via megaphone, Estebeth and Amy, which were taking a pounding in the weather, that Sophia was safe and they should take shelter in a harbor.

Capt. J.W Ledbetter, commander of the USLHS lighthouse tender Cedar, did not receive word of the grounding until 14:00 on 24 October. Then 66 miles away, Ledbetter got in wireless contact with Captain Locke and set out with his ship to the rescue. Ledbetter asked Captain Locke if he wanted to try to evacuate some of the passengers that night. Locke told Ledbetter that the wind and the tide were too strong and it would be better for the rescue ships to anchor and wait until daylight. When Ledbetter arrived at 20:00 on 24 October he found three large vessels, including the fishing schooner King and Winge which had arrived at 18:20 and about fifteen smaller fishing vessels at the scene, arriving towards the evening on the 24th.

Meanwhile, wireless reports of the grounding had reached James W. Troup, superintendent of CPR steamship operations in Victoria. He and other CPR officials were initially not too alarmed. It appeared that the passengers would be taken off soon, and the question would be one of finding accommodation for them ashore.

Communications problems

Cable communications to Alaska had been lost on 21 October 1918, and partly as a result this, the wireless operators were having to contend with a rush of messages, which made it difficult to transmit essential messages relating to the grounding of Sophia. Efforts to clear non-essential traffic were frustrated by the international character of the disaster. Word of the grounding only reached Cedar eleven hours after the grounding. Whether this was because Cedar was out of range or because wireless channels were jammed with non-essential traffic is not clear. The delay was unfortunate, as Cedar was the largest all-weather ship in the area, which could readily have taken on all of Sophia's passengers and crew. No one knows what Cedar might have been able to do had she been alerted earlier. The delay could have been significant, as the late notice to him was still well recalled 45 years later by Captain Ledbetter. Of all the rescue ships, only Cedar had wireless, and her not being on the scene earlier deprived the rescue effort of this resource, if no other.

Rescue effort begins Friday morning

Ledbetter, having the only ship with wireless, and thereby able to keep in ready contact with Sophia, organized the rescue effort. The rescue plan, although dangerous, and perhaps even desperate, was to wait until high tide at 5:00 covered the reef with at least a few feet of water. This it was hoped would be enough to launch Sophia's boats and use them to take the people from Sophia to the rescue ships. Cedar had anchored in the lee of a nearby island for the night. King and Winge, under captain J.J. Miller, had circled the Sophia all night, the only vessel to do so. On arrival at 20:00 on Thursday, Ledbetter ordered searchlights shown on Sophia. What he saw convinced him that no boats could be then launched. Waves were breaking hard against the trapped steamship's hull, and the wind was rising. Meanwhile, the stranded ship remained fixed firmly in the grip of the rocks. Ledbetter, Miller, and Locke all agreed that the passengers would be safer aboard Sophia and postponed any attempt to take them off by boat.

Rising winds force abandonment

By 09:00 on 25 October, the wind was rising towards gale strength. Ledbetter was having difficulty keeping Cedar on station, and the smaller rescue boats that had run for shelter on the evening of the 24th were unable to return to the reef. Ledbetter decided he would try to anchor Cedar about 500 yards downwind of the reef, shoot a line to Sophia (possibly using a Lyle gun), and then evacuate the passengers by breeches buoy. This would have been extremely hazardous and it would have been unlikely that over 300 people could be removed by this method, but it seemed the only thing that could be done. Ledbetter twice tried to drop anchor, but each time it failed to catch on the bottom. Locke could see this effort was failing, and radioed to Ledbetter that it was no use, they would have to wait for low tide when perhaps conditions might be better. There was nothing else that could be done.

The conditions grew steadily worse, and by about 13:00 on the 25th both Cedar and King and Winge were having difficulty keeping on station. Ledbetter radioed Locke, and asked him for permission to retire to a more protected area. Locke assented. Cedar and King and Winge then went to the lee of Sentinel Island, where Miller, captain of King and Winge came aboard Cedar to discuss a rescue plan with Ledbetter. They agreed that King and Winge, which carried a 350 fathom anchor cable, would anchor near the reef. Meanwhile, Cedar would stand off to windward of King and Winge, creating a "lee", that is, a calm (or at least calmer) spot by blocking out the wind with the bulk of the Cedar. Cedar would then launch her lifeboats to pick up people from Sophia and ferry them to the King and Winge, thus eliminating the need and the hazards of using the boats of the stranded ship. This plan however could not work unless the weather conditions improved. Given that the Sophia had withstood so far some heavy pounding and still remained fixed on the rock, Ledbetter and Miller felt the better course was to wait for the next day to attempt their plan.

Last call for assistance

Just as Miller was disembarking from Cedar to return to King and Winge, at 16:50 on 25 October, Sophia sent out a wireless message: "Ship Foundering on Reef. Come at Once." Ledbetter immediately prepared to steam out to the reef. He signaled Miller on King and Winge to follow him with two blasts of the whistle, but Miller did not at first understand the signal. Ledbetter then drove Cedar alongside King and Winge and shouted out to Miller: "I am going out there to try to locate him. If the snow should clear up, you come out and relieve me." Miller replied: "I will give you an hour to find them."

The next radio message from Sophia came at 17:20: "For God's sake, hurry, the water is in my room." There was more but the radio operator could not pick it up. Knowing Sophia had weak wireless batteries, Cedar wired Sophia to conserve battery power and only transmit if absolutely necessary. Sophia's operator radioed back: "Alright I will. You talk to me so I know you are coming." This was the last wireless message from Sophia.

Search in the storm

Cedar left the protected harbor at Sentinel Island and was immediately blasted by the wind and blowing snow. Conditions were so bad that 500 yards from the lighthouse, the station's light could not be seen and the foghorn could not be heard. For 30 minutes Cedar moved slowly towards Vanderbilt Reef. Green water was breaking over the bow of the Cedar. Without knowing precisely where she was, the rescue ship herself was in extreme danger of running onto the reef. The chief inspector of the lighthouse service district was on board Cedar at the time. He conferred with Ledbetter and they agreed that with Cedar herself in danger, and nothing to be found in the conditions, the only thing that could done was to run for shelter. Ledbetter turned Cedar back towards Sentinel Island. Unable to see anything, he had the foghorn sounding. At Sentinel Island, Captain Miller on King and Winge heard the blasts of Cedar's foghorn, and sounded his own to guide them in.

Loss of the ship

With no survivors and no witnesses to the actual sinking, what happened on Sophia to drive her off the reef is a matter of reconstruction from the available evidence and conjecture. Based on the evidence it appears that the storm, blowing in from the north, raised water levels on the reef much higher than previously, causing the vessel to become buoyant again, but only partially so. The bow of the vessel remained on the reef, and the force of the wind and waves then spun the vessel almost completely around and washed her off the reef. Dragging across the rock ripped out the ship's bottom, so when she reached deeper water near the navigation buoy, she sank. This process, based on the evidence, seems to have taken about an hour.

There appears to have been no time for an organized evacuation. Many people wore lifejackets, and two wooden lifeboats floated away (the 8 steel lifeboats sank). There were about 100 people still in their cabins when the ship sank. It is hard to know why, if the ship took half an hour to sink, why so many people were below decks, but there could be many reasons. As seawater invaded the ship, the boiler exploded, buckling the deck and killing many people. Oil fuel spilled into the water, choking people who were trying to swim away. Sophia had been equipped with extra flotation devices, on the theory that people could cling to these in the water awaiting rescue. These were worthless, as the cold seawater would kill a swimmer long before rescue could arrive.

Wreck located

The next morning, 26 October, it was still snowing, but the wind had died down somewhat. Cedar, King and Winge and other rescue vessels returned to the reef. Only the foremast of the Sophia remained above water. The rescue vessels cruised around for 3 hours looking for survivors. They found bodies, but no living people. The only survivor was a small dog, believed to belong to a wealthy couple aboard, that was able to swim to a nearby island and recovered a few days later. King and Winge took the bodies to Juneau. Cedar also returned to Juneau. When he arrived, Captain Ledbetter sent out a wire which stated: "No sign of life. No hope of survivors."

Aftermath of wreck

For months after the wreck, bodies washed up for as much as thirty miles to the north and south of Vanderbilt Reef. Wreckage and the passengers' belongings were also found, including toys of the children who had died on the ship. Many of the bodies were scarcely recognizable as human remains, being covered with a thick coat of oil. Among the dead was Walter Harper, the first person to reach the summit of Mount McKinley, the highest mountain in North America. Most of the bodies recovered were taken to Juneau, where many of the local citizens volunteered to help identify the remains and prepare them for burial. The bodies had to be scrubbed with gasoline to remove the oil. Teams of women prepared female bodies, and teams of men handled the males. The volunteers were particularly affected by the bodies of the children. Divers at the wreck site recovered about 100 bodies. Many were floating in cabins for months after the wreck. The families of passengers brought legal action against Canadian Pacific, but these failed.

Evaluation of the decision not to evacuate

Many people believed that the decision not to evacuate the ship was a grave error by Captain Locke, and that some or even all of the passengers could have been saved. The Ministry of Marine reached a similar conclusion in 1919 after hearing the evidence from first hand witnesses. Later, the courts ruled that right or wrong, the decision was within the reasonable range of judgment of the captain. Captain Ledbetter of the Cedar stated that in his opinion, he never saw conditions that would have permitted evacuation of the ship, but he was careful, even almost 50 years later, to state that this was as far as he could tell from when he arrived at the reef, which was at 20:00 on the 24th. As early as 10:20 on the 24th there were enough rescue vessels at the reef to have accommodated all of the people on the Sophia, and there would be 4 or 5 hours until the wind began to rise. Also Sophia had 8 lifeboats built of steel, not wood, which would presumably have fared better on wave-washed rocks. On the other hand, Captain Locke could not have known the weather would worsen, and there seem to have been signs that it would improve. Historians Coates and Morrison speculate that the memory of the wreck of the Clallam, when everyone in the lifeboats died after a premature abandonment of the vessel, may have played a role in Locke's decision.

Letters recovered from the lost passengers

The passengers and crew on Sophia realized their extreme danger. Many wrote letters to loved ones. At least two of these were later recovered. The letter of John R. "Jack" Maskell, found on his body, was widely printed in newspapers at the time:

Jack Maskell was buried in Vancouver's Mountain View Cemetery amidst 66 other victims of the S.S. Princess Sophia tragedy. Most lie near East 41st Avenue and Prince Edward Street in the Jones 37 section.

Wednesday 23 October 1918

Thursday 24 October 1918

Friday, 25 October 1918

Saturday, 26 October 1918