Transportation

Juneau residents and descendants of those aboard the ill-fated Princess Sophia remembered the sinking on Friday with a small memorial service and a new plate for the top of a gravestone at Evergreen Cemetary.

Walter Harper and his wife Frances Wells both died when the steamship Princess Sophia grounded on Vanderbilt Reef late on Oct. 23 and then sank on Oct. 25, 1918.

All aboard the ship — at least 343 and as many 356 passengers and crew — perished in the disaster that is still considered as the greatest maritime tragedy in Alaska waters.

Walter Harper and Frances Wells were headed south so that he could train to become a medical missionary or military doctor, according to Bill Morrison and Ken Coates in The Wreck of the Princess Sophia: Taking the North Down with Her.

Walter was the son of an Irish immigrant, the noted prospector Arthur Harper who partnered with Jack McQuesten and Alfred Mayo in the Yukon. Walter was educated by Episcopalian missionaries and Frances was a nurse from Philadelphia serving at the Fort Yukon mission. Harper served as the archdeacon’s private secretary and accompanied him on a pioneering expedition to the top of Denali (Mt. McKinley). Harper is believed to be the first person to set foot on the true summit in 1913.

The new plate for the top of the gravestone once again makes legible the stone’s engraving that has worn away over the last century. It reads:

Here lie the bodies of Walter Harper
and
Frances Wells, his wife
drowned on the Princess Sophia 25th Oct. 1918
May light perpetual shine upon them

They were lovely and pleasant in their lives
and in their death they were not divided.
II Samuel 1:23

Other recent stories:

Princess Sophia case early test of maritime liability limits

Alaskans, Yukoners filled doomed steamship

Imagine yourself as a historian who is researching an event that may’ve occurred seventy or even a hundred years ago. You’re searching for records or something that documents the people, things, and events that are part of that historic moment. Those documents may exist, but they may be scattered or misplaced.

That’s what historians and authors Bill Morrison and Ken Coates faced when they started researching the Princess Sophia disaster off Vanderbilt Reef near Juneau from Oct. 23 to Oct. 25, 1918. The disaster claimed the lives of all aboard the steamship, at least 343 and as many as 356 passengers and crew.

They had a breakthrough with their research when they found court records for a class action suit that started in Seattle.

“This was our best discovery, because originally we just going to write a paper on it,” Morrison explained during a recent interview with KTOO.

The great thing about it was, that in order to launch a class action suit, they had to provide a biography of the deceased. So what we had were 200, two- or three-page mini-biographies of the people who down on the Sophia.”

In an archived interview with KTOO, Coates said he was surprised to learn of the tragedy as an undergrad. He then spent years tracking down material about the disaster from all over the West Coast.

The case was then appealed down to (U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in) San Francisco. And when I went down to San Francisco, I got these archival boxes that had never actually been opened since the time of the court hearings in the 1930’s when they finally wrapped up. Somebody had bundled all this material in the 1930’s, tied it all together, stuffed it in boxes. It hadn’t been touched, at that point, for more than fifty years.”

Coates said the story broke wide open after they combed through those old court records.

You start to realize that not only do you have an interesting story that’s worth telling and might actually make people interested in the history of the North, but you’ve also entirely by happenstance stumbled upon a story that’s incredibly revealing about life in the far Northwest in the period around and after World War One.”

Coates said a Canadian commission of inquiry meeting in Vancouver, Victoria, and Juneau eventually chalked up the disaster to “perils of the sea” rather than a specific finding of guilt or responsibility.

The Royal Commission and commissions of that sort in Canada have a non — sort of — legal function. And, in fact, in Canada they tend to be used as a way to deflecting longstanding and serious evaluation of issues.”

It’s a complicated story. It doesn’t have an easy villain. It’s human error as opposed to malfeasance that accounts for the disaster.”

Coates and Morrison later went on to write The Sinking of the Princess Sophia: Taking the North Down with Her.

Legal aftermath

Coates and Morrison also found that the judge’s ruling on the Princess Sophia case was based on a now-162-year old law capping liability for marine corporations. Families of victims receive virtually nothing from damage claims, while the companies are still able to collect insurance on their rig or vessel.

Canadian Pacific Railway, the Princess Sophia’s owner and operator, resisted in British Columbia courts to pay workers compensation for the crew’s families. Families finally got it in the form of a very small monthly pension, but they were barred from suing for further damages.

The passengers’ principal lawsuit started in U.S. courts since the disaster happened in the Territory of Alaska, or U.S. waters.

Fourteen years after the disaster, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower court and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case. CPR eventually settled for $643.50, or less than two dollars for each life lost on the Princess Sophia, while the company got a $250,000 from the ship’s insurer.

A U.S. District Court judge found that CPR was negligent in the disaster and owed nearly $2.5 million to the crew and passengers’ families and a $1 million for their lawyer’s fees. But that same judge reversed himself less than two weeks later and ruled that CPR’s liability was capped under the Limited Liabilities Act of 1851. The company was liable only for the total passenger fares, freight fares, and baggage.

A 1963 article in the Stanford Law Review traces the origins of marine liability limits to a 17th century Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius who opined that “men would be deterred from employing ships, if they lay under the perpetual fear of being answerable for the acts of their masters to an unlimited extent.”

The author of the Stanford article, Walter Eyer, then explains the evolution of the American variation on the English system, or essentially “the owner may limit liability to the value of the vessel and pending freight.” The 1851 law was initially drafted to help American shipping stay competitive as other countries already had liability limits in place.

The act was invoked in the Titanic case and Eyer also cites applications in the Princess Sophia and Morro Castle cases. He suggested with modern-day marine insurance that such a law is obsolete and overdue for an overhaul, but it will likely never be tackled.

The Limited Liabilities Act of 1851 was the same law that Transocean referred to in its initial request to cap liability at $27 million from the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico over three years ago. The company said that was the current value of the oil platform and cargo.

(Author’s note: A big hat tip for part of this story goes to Seattle-area writer and former television journalist Bob Simmons. He made the Princess Sophia-Transocean connection in an article How evading oil spill liability is helped by a Seattle tragedy that was published in the online magazine CrossCut.com in June 2010.)

 
Other recent stories:

Alaskans, Yukoners filled doomed steamship

People love top-ten lists, and just recently, USA Today posted a list of the world’s ten most thrilling airports. That list was put together by Airfarewatchdog.com. On the list is an ice runway in Antarctica, which could potentially crack under the weight of a plane; a landing strip in Africa where planes taxi off a cliff and fall a little ways before catching air; and Ketchikan International Airport.

While it’s not surprising that an Alaska airport made the list, some Ketchikan residents, including the mayor, are not sure whether the local airport really deserves the honor.

The airport is operated by the Ketchikan Gateway Borough. And Borough Mayor Dave Kiffer said that, of course, he’s always thrilled when he flies in to Ketchikan.

That said, though, it seems unlikely that Ketchikan truly is one of the top-ten most thrilling airports in the world.

“I’m not even sure we’re in the top-ten of thrilling airports in Alaska,” he said. “Certainly, there’s no question, I’ve had a lot more thrilling landings in places like Juneau and Sitka over the years, even Wrangell now and again, than I have had in Ketchikan.”

The short description that states why Ketchikan was chosen for the list simply states that, “The awfully short runway is close to mountains and the ocean, which drops to freezing temperatures.”

The runway at Ketchikan’s airport was lengthened a few years ago, and has an extension in case of emergency over-runs. In addition, while the ocean does get quite cold, it doesn’t ever freeze. One truly thrilling aspect of flying in or out of Ketchikan wasn’t mentioned: Wind.

“There have been times flying in here when it’s been right at the limit for allowing you to land, and you get that lovely little bucking bronco approach to landing,” Kiffer said. “Certainly, the fog is an issue. Certainly there are issues besides just the fact that there’s a mountain nearby and the ocean is nearby.”

Before Ketchikan had an airport, Kiffer said, it was truly thrilling to fly here. People coming to Ketchikan flew larger planes to Annette Island, and then transferred to the old-fashioned float-planes, like the Grumman Goose, which then would bring them to Ketchikan.

“And those float planes landed on their bellies, and the water would splash up by the windows, and invariably, someone who never landed in Ketchikan before would scream,” he said.

Kiffer does have one theory as to why Ketchikan’s airport does count as one of the top most thrilling airports in the world:

“We have the best popcorn in the State of Alaska at our airport,” he said. “I know that because you’ll see flight crews get off the plane, go over, get popcorn and then get back on the plane again.”

Kiffer wrote a column on this topic for the site Sitnews.

See the original story and hear the audio at KRBD: Ketchikan airport called one of the most ‘thrilling’

The guys in day-glow vests digging holes in Egan Drive median and along sidewalks Thursday are part of a survey mapping crew, gathering topographic information for DOT’s 10^th Street to Main Street project.

It includes bike lanes, wider sidewalks, new crosswalks and Egan Drive resurfacing.

State Transportation Department engineer Kirk Miller says the survey crew was “locating edge of pavement and curbs and drainage inlets and making sure we have those on our survey base map.”

The $4.9 million project is in the 2014 Statewide Transportation Improvement Program, or STIP.  It will be paid for with federal and state cruise ship tax funds.

A number of public meetings have already been held on the project and Miller says the public will be interested to see the new set of plans due out in early November. DOT officials are expected to update the Juneau Planning Commission on Nov. 12^th.

Design of the Egan Drive improvements from 10^th to Main Street will be completed next fall. Construction is to start in 2015.

This week marks the 95th anniversary of the most tragic Alaska voyage that may have also changed the course of history of the Far North.

Or, did it?

It was very late on the night of Oct. 23, 1918 when the steamship Princess Sophia had just departed Skagway for its trip south to Vancouver, Victoria, and Seattle. Many on board were Yukoners and Interior Alaskans heading for a warmer climate during the winter. Others were leaving for good.

The crew of the 245-foot vessel Princess Sophia struggled against blowing snow and strong winds as they headed down Lynn Canal in the dark. The steamship grounded on Vanderbilt Reef northwest of Juneau and remained there for close to forty hours as a storm blew through the area.

Other local vessels waited out the weather before trying to approach the reef and help evacuate at least 343 and, perhaps, as many as 356 passengers and crew. But they never had the chance. Sometime during the following night of Oct. 24, the vessel pivoted in place on the reef, its stern pushed by northwesterly winds. With the hull severely damaged, the vessel flooded and slipped backward beneath waves. Everyone on board — men, women, and children — had perished.

They included Juneau’s customs collector, as much as ten percent of Dawson City’s population, all of the Princess Sophia’s crew that lived in Vancouver and Victoria, over 85 riverboat crewmembers and captains from the White Pass and Yukon Railway company and their family who traveled on the Princess Sophia. Also on board were laborers, businesspeople, and civil servants from all over the Yukon and Alaska.

“The thing is we did our research 25 years ago, which was the 70th anniversary of the sinking. It’s now the 95th anniversary and there’s a lot of time has passed,” said professor emeritus of history Bill Morrison.

Morrison was co-author of the definitive history of the disaster, The Sinking of the Princess Sophia: Taking the North Down With Her.

Morrison was in Juneau last weekend for the Al-Can Summit organized by the Juneau World Affairs Council and University of Alaska Southeast. He was also the featured speaker on the Princess Sophia disaster during the University’s Evening at Egan presentation.

In an interview with KTOO before his presentation, Morrison talked about his initial research in Victoria for the book roughly 25 years ago.

Someone phoned me and said ‘Did you know that a crewmember from the Sophia is still alive?’ I said, ‘Can’t be. They’re all dead.'”

Morrison describes finding Phillip A. Hole, 95-year old man in a Victoria seniors home who served as a purser on the Princess Sophia in 1916.

“I said to him ‘How did they navigate in the dark?’ Because you’re coming down the Lynn Canal, in 1916, you don’t have radar, how did you navigate? ‘How did you keep from running into Vanderbilt Reef every time you went down?’,” remembers Morrison.

“And he said ‘What we did is blow the whistle or the ship’s horn, and then listen for the echoes off the steep sides of the canal.'”

“I still remember this frail old man, shifting on his left foot, then right foot, ‘A thousand-one, a thousand-two. Boom, boom.'”

Morrison remembers asking Hole “‘What did they do when it was screaming wind and snowing?’ He didn’t have an answer.”

Morrison said enlistment for World War One and the decline of hand mining and the rise of mechanized dredge mining had more of an impact on the Yukon Territory then the loss of a large number of residents on the Princess Sophia.

Juneau’s processed poop is going to start piling up come Jan. 1, unless a new disposal arrangement comes together soon.

The search for the latest stopgap to get rid of the capital city’s sewage sludge comes after municipal officials abandoned a new disposal contract.

The city solicited contracts in August, and received only one viable bid from Juneau homebuilder Bicknell Inc. The Juneau Assembly had even approved funding the new contract in September, before municipal staffers decided to cancel it.

That leaves just 10 weeks before Juneau goes over the fecal cliff, as a KVOK radio host once called it. (Kodiak had a similar sewage sludge problem last year.)

Juneau’s sewage sludge disposal contract with Waste Management expires at the end of the calendar year. After that, the city doesn’t have the means to dispose of it on its own.

Bicknell declined to comment, but City Engineering Director Rorie Watt said the company’s plan was to heat dry the sludge. That means using specialized industrial equipment that’s kind of like a big, sophisticated laundry dryer. Heat drying is one of several methods the Environmental Protection Agency recognizes for processing biosolids to recycle as fertilizer.

Watt said three things led the city to abandon the contract: higher costs, risk of significant odor issues and lack of time.

Bicknell quoted its proposal at $1.6 million per year, which is about 40 percent more than what the city spends now on disposal.

A new contract with Waste Management wouldn’t necessarily be cheaper; it bid in August, too, with a higher price. And the bid was invalid because it demanded Juneau process the sludge up to fertilizer levels.

Waste Management’s local manager, Eric Vance, said he doesn’t know yet if he’ll still be in sludge business in 2014.

The odor risk became apparent after hearing from Stayton, Oregon. Watt said an operation there uses the same equipment Bicknell planned to use and processes the same kind of sludge produced by one of Juneau’s wastewater treatment plants. The town complained about odors, even though it was a mile away from wastewater treatment and sludge processing facility.

“So the sum total of it I think was, you know, good on Bicknell for trying to propose a solution for us, ‘cause we need one,” Watt said.  “But, you know, if we get that kind of odor issue and we’ve got a 5-year contract, and, and our costs increase by at least 40 percent, it doesn’t look like a good deal to us. And, realistically, could they be ready by Jan. 1? No way.”

Bicknell still needed to set up its facility as well as acquire municipal and state permits.

“We sort of bit the bullet and spent the money on watertight shipping containers,” Watt said.

That’s $800,000 for 40 new specialized shipping containers, because Waste Management doesn’t process the sludge. It’s been shipping hundreds of tons of the stuff a month via Alaska Marine Lines to an Oregon landfill. And AML has its own complaints about odors and leakage, which the containers resolve.

Watt said state grant money and municipal sales tax paid for the containers. Juneau bought five of the containers last year as an experiment, but needed many more for a continuous shipping rotation.

Juneau Assemblyman Randy Wanamaker chairs the Public Works Committee. He said the containers are expensive, but necessary.

“We have to have a solution. We cannot be caught at the end of December without having an option available,” he said.

Wanamaker’s committee will look at long-term options, and how to pay for them.

City staff and consultants outlined a variety of sewage disposal options in a report released in April that raises this policy question:

“Is it better or worse to have a big capital hit up front in exchange for lower rates over the long term? Or vice versa?” Watt asked.

To deal with the imminent fecal cliff, solid waste coordinator Jim Penor said the city will solicit a new contract.