SOMEBODY LOST THREE MILLION DOLLARS!
Is three million dollars in gold still shifting about the bottom of Alaska's "Inside Passage"? During the years 1897 to 1904 nearly $100,000,000 in Yukon gold was shipped out of Alaska's down the West Coast. An estimated three million dollars in nuggets and dust was aboard the S.S. Islander, flagship of the Canadian Pacific Navigation Company, when it left Skagway August 14, 1901, en route to Victoria.
The Islander, built in Scotland in 1888, was the fastest and most beautiful ship in the Canadian Pacific's northern fleet. The "unsinkable" Islander had a 240-foot beam and with her triple-expansion engines and twin screws was capable of steaming 20 knots.
Among the 181 people aboard were many "unlucky" lucky miners from the Whitehorse River country with their fortunes of hard-earned gold.
The Islander steamed down narrow Lynn Canal, the present-day route of the Alaska Ferry System, to Juneau. Early the next day, Thursday, August 15, the Islander departed Juneau at its usual fast pace. A few miles down Stephens Passage, at the mouth of the scenic Taku Inlet, a large iceberg flanked by many smaller bergs had drifted into the middle of Stephens Passage with the help of an offshore breeze. By the time the Islander had reached this ghostly fleet, dense fog bank had made the danger invisible.
The Captain of the Islander, H. R. Foote, was in the saloon having a post-midnight lunch. Earlier he had has his temper raised by his pilot who was under the influence of alcohol when they left Skagway; the crewman had been celebrating with the wealthy miners.
To the starboard, the few passengers who lingered on the decks could see the huge shape of Douglas Island come to an end. Then the Islander became enveloped in the white mantle of glacial fog. The steam whistle shattered the night with its first warning blast, but the racing engines did not slow their beat. Again the whistle bellowed into the night. When steam poured from the whistle the third time, the echo turned to the ship with frightening suddenness. The echo came back from the enormous iceberg which had been calved by Taku Glacier and now lay directly in front of the ship.
The Islander hit the massive ice mountain squarely, and awakened all of the passengers and crew who had been asleep; but when the ship hit the berg the bull buckled, leaving the stateroom doors jammed tightly shut.
Panic-stricken passengers were told that there was no anger because the watertight doors had been secured so the compartments were sealed. Many of the passengers went back to bed, even as the chief engineer was reporting to Captain Foote that the pumps could not handle the in rushing glacial water.
When it was realized that the Islander had been inflicted a mortal blow, Chief Steward Simpson and other officers organized a rescue party to remove trapped passengers from their staterooms. The thundering sound of axes again panicked the passengers. Scared people rushed from below onto the decks, half asleep and dazed with shock. The decks of the Islander were mass confusion as she went down. One of these drifting boats missed the still turning screws by inches when the bow submerged, pushing the stern high in the air. As the hull sank lower in the water it was racked by a great explosion; the whole superstructure appeared to rise from the decks. Then the lights went out and the Islander was gone.
Most of the Whitehorse miners abandoned their treasure to save their lives but some secured satchels of gold before the ship went down, and one determined prospector plunged overboard with a suitcase containing $40,000. Neither he nor the gold ever came up. Most of the passengers who didn't make it to lifeboats were thrown into the water by the blast and clung o bits of wreckage, but they couldn't survive the two-hour dip in the glacial waters.
Among the forty-two who died was Captain Foote. The last words of the Captain as he slipped from his fragment of the Islander were, "Tell them I tried to beach her."
Dawn brought about the organization of a volunteer party headed by Chief Engineer Brownlee and his mate. They walked up the beach toward Juneau in search of help, reaching the Treadwell Mine where the Steamers Flossie and Lucy was docked. By noon the Flossie was back at Juneau with her flag at half-mast, the Islander's survivors crowded on the deck and six of the dead laid out below.
A report of the disaster didn't reach outside until the Steamer Queen arrived in Victoria August 18. Then news spread like wildfire from people who had heard it at the wharf. The number of deaths was greatly exaggerated, but it all made for a sensational news story.
The Islander became the object of an intense search by many fortune seekers, and after three years she was found lying in forty fathoms of water. Men who had heard of the hoard of gold lost when the Islander went down engulfed the area with grappling hooks, but managed to raise only a few barnacle-encrusted steel plates. These were sold for nearly their weight in gold as the only souvenirs of Alaska's worst marine tragedy.
The next few decades saw many divers descend to great depths in the freezing waters of Stephen's Passage. But not until 1934, through new salvage techniques, did the rusted hull of the Islander rise to shallow waters. Hard-hat divers searched the wreck thoroughly but found only a trace of the gold the Islander took with her.
Previous salvage work done by a Portland, Oregon company was believed to have produced several cases of Scotch whiskey and a camera that still worked. The hull of the Islander was taken to Greens Bay, a few miles from the scene of her death, where it stayed until 1952 when it was broken up and sold as scrap metal.
Many theories have been offered-some say the miners tried to save their fortunes as the Islander went down; others say the gold "slipped out" as the Islander was raised; some think the gold on board was pirated in early grappling operations; other contend the Islander was carrying no gold when it left Skagway-that it had already been stolen.
Whatever theory you prefer, $3,000,000 of Yukon gold disappeared and chances are it's still in the depths of Stephens Passage.
SOURCE
True West Magazine, April 1967, By Jack Miller