October 15, 2018 • 33 mins
The sinking of the SS Princess Sophia was a massive tragedy for both Canada and the United States. But it was also really overshadowed by the end of World War I and the flu pandemic, so it’s been nicknamed the unknown Titanic of the West Coast.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. We're coming
up on the hundredth anniversary of the sinking of the
s S Princess of Faia, which sank in the Lynn
(00:23):
Canal in southeastern Alaska on October This was a massive
tragedy for both Canada and the United States. It had
a huge impact on Alaska, British Columbia, and Yukon, but
it was also really overshadowed by the end of World
War One and the flu pandemic that was going on
by that point, so it has been nicknamed the Unknown
(00:46):
Titanic of the West Coast. In eighteen the primary way
to get to many parts of Alaska and Yukon was
by water. Ships carried passengers, cargo and mail to ports
along the coast of Alaska and British Columbia, and people
traveled by river inland from there. And to some extent,
this continues to be true today. Although there are more
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roads and airplanes going to and from these places, boats
still continue to be a major way to travel. One
of the companies that was providing passenger and cargo service
along the coast of Alaska and British Columbia was Canadian
Pacific Railway Company, which is often abbreviated as CPR that
still exists today as Canadian Pacific. CPR started a steamship business,
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which was called Canadian Pacific Steamship Company in a late
eighteen hundreds. Their first routes were trans Pacific and they
connected Vancouver, British Columbia with Asia. Soon the company started
offering transatlantic service from the east coast of North America
as well. In the early twentieth century, Canadian Pacific Steamship
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Company started providing service up and down the coast of
the Pacific Northwest. To that end, CPR purchased Canadian Pacific
Navigation Company in n one. The newly purchased company had
been carrying passengers and cargo along the coast of British
Columbia as well as through Alaska's Inside Passage. So the
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Inside Passage is a collection of fiords, channels and straits
that stretches more than a thousand miles. It's about six
hundred kilometers from Seattle, Washington north through British Columbia, to Skagway, Alaska.
The vessels that CPR operated along these routes were nicknamed
the Princess Fleet, and all the ships had the word
Princess and their names. The Princess Fleet grew really quickly
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during the first two decades of the twentieth century, and
the company was supporting the tourism industry in addition to
carrying the workers, families, cargo, and mail that needed to
get around that area. This growth didn't really slow down
during World War One. Although some of CPR ships were
requisitioned for the war effort, people still needed to get
to and from all these places, and the best way
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to do it was still by water. People from the
US and Canada who had the means to travel for fun,
we're also choosing to do it in North America rather
than visiting increasingly war torn Europe. During the war, the
Princess Fleet also started carrying troops, including people who had
enlisted and were reporting for duty. The s S Princess
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Sofia was, of course part of this fleet. It was
built by bou McLaughlin and Company, was launched on November
eighth of nineteen eleven and took its maiden voyage on
June seventh. On the following year, the Princess Safia had
been commissioned specifically for running these routes along the inside passage.
During the May to October season and the off season,
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the ship operated as a ferry between Victoria and Vancouver,
British Columbia. The Princess Sofia was built to be a
modest but comfortable vessel, suited for both passengers and cargo
in these northern waters. It was two forty five ft
or seventy five ms long, with a maximum speed of
thirteen to fourteen knots. It's typical running speed was eleven knots.
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Under normal conditions. The Princess Sofia carried between two hundred
fifty and three hundred fifty passengers, but that number could
be increased all the way up to five hundred in
special circumstances and with special permission. The ship's typical route
had four stops in British Columbia and four in Alaska
from north to south. These were Victoria, Vancouver, Alert Bay
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and Prince British Columbia, and Wrangel Catkan, Juneau and Skagway, Alaska.
The stops in Juneo and Skaguay were also really important
to communities in Yukon since they were connected to the
Yukon interior by water. Even with an experienced and capable crew,
this route could be really treacherous. The s S Princess
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Sofia had a number of incidents before sinking in nineteen eighteen,
some of them serious. The ship collided with something under
water in November of nineteen thirteen, which broke its stern post,
and it also ran aground twice, once in April of
nineteen thirteen and again in January, and there were also
many more minor incidents over the years. One particularly treacherous
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stretch of the route that the Princess of File was
usually taking was the Lynn Canal. In spite of what
its name suggests, the Lynn Canal isn't an artificial waterway.
It's a fjord that's part of the inside passage. Captain
George Vancouver named it after his birthplace of King's Lynn.
The Lynn Canal is very narrow. It ranges from about
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three to thirteen miles or roughly five to twenty kilometers wide,
and it is also very windy. The shape of the
canal funnels the wind, so wind speeds of seventy to
eighty knots are not uncommon. On top of that are
willow waws, which are sudden, violent squalls and winds that
blow in off the surrounding glaciers, making the Lynn Canal
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even more dangerous than all that wind and the squalls.
Is the Vanderbilt Reef, which is a stretch of about
seven miles or eleven kilometers of rock that's right in
the middle of the fiord. The tides create a huge
variation and how deep the water is around the reef.
Most of the time it is just under the surface,
but during very low tides, it can be as much
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as twelve feet or about three and a half meters
above the surface. Obviously, this reef has been there for
thousands of years and people knew that it existed, but
in terms of being a hazard to commercial shipping, it
was first noted in eighteen eighty when J. M. Vanderbilt
of the Northwest Trading Company charted it and named it
after himself, and then spread the word to other captains
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about it. In nineteen eighteen, the Vanderbilt Reef wasn't well
marked at all. The nearest lighthouse was the Sentinel Island Lighthouse,
which is about four miles or six and a half
kilometers away. The reef itself was marked with a buoy
that was only visible by daylight. CPR had asked the
US government to install a light on the reef in
nineteen seventeen. Although Canadian vessels were in and out of
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this area all the time, the reef itself was part
of Alaska Territory and therefore it was the responsibility of
the United States and not Canada to put a light there,
but because of the war, funding wasn't set aside to
do it. The s S Princess Sofia departed Skagway, Alaska
at the end of the Lynn Canal on October twenty three,
nineteen eighteen, for the last run of the season, and
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this was a big trip every year. The ship was
sold out and the company had prepared for a big crowd,
but even in spite of the advanced preparations, boarding and
loading that evening had been particularly chaotic. There were people
who had made their way to the region during the
Klondike gold Rush. Skagway itself had been founded during the
gold Rush. By this point, the gold rush was over
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and this departing crowd included people who had decided finally
to leave Alaska and the North entirely. It also included
seasonal miners whose jobs were ending for the winter, but
who planned to come back again in the spring. Miners
weren't the only scenal employees leaving Skagway that day. The
Yukon River connected Skagway, Alaska to Dawson, Yukon, and the
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steamship operators who traveled that route were shutting down for
the season. Two other passengers included government officials, business travelers,
and families, and there were also new recruits aboard reporting
for duty in World War One. Because this was the
last run of the season, the mood at the dock
was really festive. It was basically a big Sea in
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the Spring party, with the people who were staying put
getting ready to hunker down for the winter. A lot
of people were also bidding what they thought was a
temporary farewell to friends and family who were planning to
come back once all the waterways thought in the following spring.
Probably because of all the business and chaos, the s
S Princess Sofia left Skagway, Alaska at about ten pm
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on the twenty three that was about three hours behind schedule.
Captain Leonard Locke was at the helm, and most of
the Princess Sofia's crew had plenty of experiences on this route,
and Locke was no exception. He had been working in
the waterways in this part of the Northwest for twenty
five years. But not long after departing, the weather really
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started to turn sour. We will get to that after
a quick sponsor break. About an hour after leaving Skagway, Alaska,
the s S Princess Safia rounded battery point and met
a terrible storm. Winds were blowing at about fifty knots
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and a heavy snow and fog had rolled in. Under
normal procedures, Locke would have slowed his speed from the
typical running speed of about eleven knots down to seven knots,
but instead, possibly because they were running so late, he
kept the ship running at eleven knots. Many of the
technologies used for navigation and avoiding collisions today did not
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exist yet, or they were in their infancy. The first
passive sonar system for detecting submerged objects was developed in
nineteen and the first active sonar system was created in
nine eighteen so this technology was still brand new and
was being used to detect submarines and military vessels, but
it really wasn't in use in civilian vessels at all yet,
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practical radar systems were still a couple of decades away.
By daylight ships navigated the Limb Canal by taking compass
readings while citing known points on the land and the
dark and in bad weather, what they would do is
sound the ship's horn and then count the time until
they heard the echo off the surrounding cliffs and glaciers.
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That's one of those things that when people describe it,
I know people used this all the time, very safely.
To me, this is terrifying. Well, and I mean that
was an imprecise way of doing it, even under good circumstances. Yes,
And of course as the storm got worse, it probably
became harder and harder to hear those echoes, and soon
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the Princess Sofia was blown off course. Rather than to
one side of the canal where they were supposed to be,
they were right in the middle. The Princess Sofia struck
the Vanderbilt Reef at about two am on October, traveling
at their usual speed of eleven knots. The ship came
to a total halt almost instantly, with sleeping passengers being
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thrown from their births and crew being thrown from their stations.
At first, the situation seemed to be extremely inconvenient, but
not all that perilous. The ship was firmly jammed on
the rocks, but didn't seem to be badly damaged. Once
everyone recovered from the shock and the physical effects of
being thrown around, most of the passengers really remained calm.
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People who had minor injuries were patched up, and some
damage within the ship was repaired. At first, Captain Locke
thought they might be floated off of the rocks the
next high tide and just continue on their way. That
is actually what had happened when the Princess Sofia had
run aground in April of nineteen, which had also happened
on the Vanderbilt Reef. Passenger R. S. McQueen wrote a
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letter during these relatively calm hours which said quote, she
is a double bottom boat and her inner hall is
not penetrated, so here we stick. She pounds some on
a rising tide, and it is slow writing, but our
only inconvenience is so far lack of water. The main
steam pipe got twisted off, and we were without lights
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last night and have run out of soft sugar. But
the pipe is fixed, so we are getting heat and
lights now and we still have lump sugar and water
for drinking. If you have the energy and the note
that they're out of soft sugar, right, things seem fine.
They don't seem that bad at that point. So, of course,
after hitting the Vanderbilt reef, the ship's wireless operator had
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sent out a distress call. There weren't any other vessels
in the area that were large enough to accommodate all
the Princess Sofia's passengers and crew, though, so four phishing
vessels were sent to try to assist. These were the Stab,
the Amy, the E a Heg, and the Peterson. Soon
a fishing schooner called the King and Wing came to assist,
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as well as the Cedar, which was a lighthouse tender
from the U S Lighthouse Service. As these vessels started
to arrive on the morning of the twenty four though,
the weather got worse. The other vessels couldn't get close
to the Princess Sofia without endangering themselves, and it became
clear that a cross wind was grinding the ship onto
the rocks, and that was making a visible hole in
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the outer hole. Captain Locke thought it would be more
dangerous to try to put people into lifeboats than it
would be to just stay put and wait for the
weather to turn, and the barometer was rising, so he
was hopeful that better weather was on the way. High
tide also came and went without shifting the boat off
the rocks. The wind was blowing the water so hard
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that the tide appeared to be several feet lower than
it really was. They weren't hoping to be lifted off
the rocks anymore now that it was clear that the
hall was damaged, but with all that having happened, it
didn't seem like they would be, so with all that
in mind, it seemed safer to just wait. The captain's
decision may have also been influenced by the nineteen o
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four wreck of the S S. Klalum, which foundered just
outside of Victoria Harbor, and on that ship, the captain
ordered all of the women and children to be evacuated
into lifeboats along with some of the men, and every
lifeboat either capsized or was wrecked. Everyone who had been
evacuated died. Captain Locke also would have been familiar with
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the nineteen ten stranding of the Princess May on nearby
Sentinel Island, from which all the passengers and crew were
evacuated safely. It turned out that barometer reading was deceptive, though.
The barometer started falling rapidly at about three pm on
and the weather suddenly got a whole lot worse. A
Royal Canadian Mounted Police report that was written after the
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disaster called it, quote the worst storm in progress ever
known in the Lynn Canal. During all of this, the
Princess Sofia was communicating with all these other vessels by radio,
megaphone and radiogram, which is a telegram that's sent by
radio rather than over wires. Radiograms were sent back and
forth to CPR headquarters as well. Captain Lack sent a
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radiogram to the Cedar at four or forty five pm. Quote,
impossible to get passengers off tonight as c is running
too strong. Will probably be able to get them off
early morning, strong tide. Captain Leadbetter aboard the Cedar replied, quote,
if Sofia in no danger slipping off and passengers safe
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until daylight. Would like to drop anchor under Sentinel Island,
be in touch by wireless if you think necessary, will
remain under way all night. By this point, the passengers,
who had been waiting for more than all hours, were
becoming increasingly apprehensive. Passenger John R. Maskell, known as Jack,
wrote a letter to his fiance Dorothy Burgess, which ended quote,
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We're expecting the lights to go out at any minute.
Also the fires the boat might go to pieces for
the force of the waves are terrible, making awful noises
on the side of the boat, which has quite a
list to port. No one is allowed to sleep, but
believe me, dear Dorry, it might have been much worse.
Just here there is a big steamer coming. We struck
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the reef in a terrible snowstorm. There is a big
buoy near marking the danger, but the captain was to
port instead to starboard the buoy. I made by will
this morning, leaving everything to you, my own true love,
and I want you to give a hundred pounds to
my dear mother, a hundred pounds to my dear dad,
a hundred pounds to dear wee Jack, and the balance
of my estate about three hundred pounds to you, Dory dear.
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The Eagle Lodge will take care of my remains. Endanger
at sea, Princess Safia October eighteen. In the face of
the treacherous weather, the rescue ships left to seek shelter,
and the Princess Sofia spent the night on the rocks.
On the morning of oct the rescue ships returned to
try again. The captain of the Cedar proposed making a
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bridge is buoy, which she might also say as a
breach is buoy. To do this, the cedar would drop
an anchor and run a line over to the Princess Sofia.
People would then use it like a zip line, sliding
from the Princess Sofia over to the Cedar one at
a time. The name of this comes from the practice
of slinging a pair of canvas bridges over the line
to hang on to. We can do historical zip line
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tours this way. I think we have a business venture
in our future. But the water was still so rough
that the cedars anchor simply would not hold. At eleven
am on the twenty, led Better sent a radiogram quote
I can't make anchors hold could not row boat to
you at present. Believe your passengers are perfectly safe until
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we and moderates. We'll stand by until safe to make
transfer with safety. As the violent storm continued, the rescue
ships were once again driven away to take shelter, but
kept in touch with the Princess of Fia. What had
been a tedious but relatively safe weight became terrifying. After
all the rescue vessels were gone. The wind was howling
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and pounding the ship into the rocks. The power went
out about three o'clock in the afternoon, which meant most
of the passengers were in total darkness with a screaming,
violent storm going on around them. E. M. Miller of
the King and Wing later sent the summary of what
happened by radiogram quote. Talked with Sophia several times between
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two and three pm. Their dynamo went out and lost
power about three PM. Called the Sofia several times between
four thirty and four forty five PM. No answer five
forty five Talking to s s Atlas gave him seven
messages for to you know fourty pm Sofia sending s
O S said taking water and foundering for God's sake,
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come and save us, replied, saying coming full speed, but
cannot see account thick snow and taking heavy seas. Told S.
S Atlas better come and tried to get Juno, and
then kept on with Safia until five twenty, when his
battery was so weak it was almost impossible to understand him.
Told him to quit talking except for what was absolutely necessary.
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He replied, all right, but for God's sake, hurry water
coming in room. No more was heard from him. The
S s Atlas, which had left Juno at about four
PM to try to help, also sent a telegram to
the Cedar at five thirty PM on describing near progress
to try to join the rescue as quote, feeling our
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way in blinding snowstorm. It was just too dangerous for
any of these other ships to stay with the Princess Sofia.
That's why they had all once again gone away to
seek shelter. The weather finally cleared overnight, and at nine
fifteen on the morning of October, a lighthouse superintendent from
Sentinel Island sent a radio graham saying he had arrived
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at the scene at eight thirty and only the Princess
Sofia's foremast was visible above the surface of the water.
We're going to take another quick moment for a brief
sponsor break. Sometimes between five thirty and six thirty pm
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on October after all the rescue ships had gone to
try to take shelter, the high wind and the tide
had combined to twist the s s Princess Sofia completely
around on top of Vanderbilt Reef, causing it to point
north instead of south, and the process it tore the
bottom completely out of the ship. The ship slid into
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the water, tanks ruptured and covered the water's surface a
thick layer of oil. An order was apparently given to
abandon ship, and some lifeboats were deployed, but none of
them were deployed successfully. Only one person seems to have
gotten away from the actual sinking, Frank Gussie, the ship's
second officer. He was found on shore, but he had
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died of exposure. The recks only confirmed survivor was a
dog an English center, who was found covered in oil
about twenty miles or thirty two kilometers to the south
two days later. The exact death toll for this wreck
is unclear. There were probably between two d and two
D nine passengers on board and fifty five to sixty
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five crew. A list of known passengers includes three hundred
sixty people, but there were definitely stowaways on board, as
well as people who boarded in Skagway planning to work
for their passage, but who weren't written down. Babies in
arms also weren't necessarily on the passenger list. The victims
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included more than a hundred residents of Dawson, Yukon, which
only had a population of about eight hundred at that time.
Approximately eight percent of the white population of Yukon died.
Similar numbers for the indigenous population of Canada and Alaska
aren't really known. But Walter Harper, who was an Athabaskan
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guide and the first person to summit to Nally, was
killed along with his wife Francis. Some writers have made
the argument that this was economically catastrophic for Yukon and
led to a serious decline for the territory and for
all of the Canadian North, but really there was a
lot of other stuff going on at the same time
as well, including the flu pandemic and changes to the
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mining industry. So this was definitely a tragedy that had
a real impact, but it was not the only factor.
John F. Pugh, who was District Collector of US Customs
for Alaska, was also on board, along with Walter J. O'Brien,
who was a CPR Company agent from Dawson. He was
on the ship with his wife and five children, and
was found with his arms around one of his sons.
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The passengers also included eighty five members of riverboat crews
that operated out of Skagway, which destroyed the riverboat Company's
workforce for that route completely. So after it was discovered
that the ship had sunk, what had been a rescue
effort immediately turned to recovery. More than a hundred bodies
were recovered in the first hour. Many of the people
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had drowned or died of exposure, but another major cause
of death was asphyxiation, either because people got caught up
in the oil slick and couldn't breathe, or because of
the build up of gases inside the vessel as its
operating systems blue. The oil slick also caused wildlife deaths,
including the deaths of flocks of ducks. The s S
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Princess Safaia itself was quickly determined not to be salvageable,
or at least not salvageable until spring, but the effort
to recover bodies went on for weeks. A total of
on bodies were eventually recovered, some of them many miles
away from the wreck itself. Initially, the bodies were housed
in an empty warehouse in Juno that was used as
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a temporary mortuary, with members of the community cleaning the
oil from the bodies. Divers were also sent to recover
a safe full of gold that had been on board,
and they returned with a body as well. The bodies
of Canadian residents were sent to Vancouver aboard the Princess Alice,
which was nicknamed the Ship of Sorrow because of this
sad duty. But the Princess Alice arrived in Vancouver on
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November eleven, nineteen eighteen, which was Armistice Day, so the
mood in Vancouver when the ship actually got there was
exuberant because at the end of the war, the mayor
had the flags blown at half staff for an hour.
On the twelfth, Thomas Riggs Jr. Territorial Governor of Alaska,
issued a statement after learning the news of the wreck,
quote wreck of the Princess Safia has cast a great
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chew At overall of Northland, Alaska grieves with the Yukon,
and he also sent a message to the U. S
Secretary of the Interior calling it the quote most ghastly
incident in the history of the territory. Of course, this
is a massive tragedy and there were immediate cults for
an end quest. But there were also a lot of
questions and complications because of the international nature of the disaster.
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It had happened in Alaska, and virtually everyone involved in
the rescue attempt was American, but it was a Canadian ship,
and many of the people who died aboard were Canadian,
most of them from Yukon. There was also the question
of how and what exactly to investigate, because everyone who
could have been questioned about what happened aboard the Princess
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Safia was dead. The first official inquiry was held January six,
nine nineteen, at Bastion Square Court House in Victoria, British Columbia.
Witnesses from the rescue vessels offered testimony about how treacherous
Lynn Canal was, but some also raised doubts about whether
Locke had made the right decisions. A big point of
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contention was the Sufist traveling at eleven knots rather than
at seven. The other was the decision not to evacuate
Captain Cornelia Stidham aboard the Peterson and Captain Miller of
the King and Wing both said that the evacuation would
have been possible during a very brief window of time
before the wind really picked up. Captain James Davis of
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the Estabethan Edward McDougal of the Amy backed them up
in this opinion. These judgments, though, were made with the
benefit of hindsight and knowing how the weather progressed after
that call was made to stay put, and everyone agreed
that even if some people had been rescued in this
window of relatively less treacherous weather, many others would still
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have died. There were also other captains who had the
opposite opinion. According to one inspector from the Royal Canadian
Mounted Police quote, I have interviewed several deep sea captains
and are all of the same opinion that given similar
conditions and circumstances, they would have acted exactly as did
Captain Locke. It is considered that he acted as any
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level headed seafaring man would have done, and while his
error of judgment caused the loss of so many lives
it is considered simply an act of providence. The inquiry
was closed on March tenth, nineteen, and taken to Parliament
on April twenty three. In the end, no blame was
placed on Lock or on CPR. The U S vessels
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that came to assist were compensated for their time and
efforts in a small payment was given to families. American
relatives of the victims filed a class action suit in
the United States, and that dragged on for fourteen years.
At first, a U S. District Court judge found that
CPR was negligent and CPR was fined two point five
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million dollars to be paid to the families of the
passengers and crew, plus a million dollars of court costs,
But the judge reversed this decision a couple of weeks later,
saying that this tragedy fell under the Limited Liabilities Act
of eighteen fifty one, so all CPR was responsible for
was the cost of fairs and baggage. The Limited Liabilities
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Act of eighteen fifty one was crafted to mimic limited
liability laws that were already in effect. In other countries,
there wasn't any such thing as comprehensive insurance for shipping companies,
and because American companies had no limits to their liability
in the event of a disaster, they faced much higher
potential costs. So a law was drafted to try to
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make shipping companies operating out of the United States more
competitive with similar businesses operating out of other countries. This
law limited a company's liability to the value of the
ship and the cargo after a disaster, so if the
ship was a total loss, that value might actually be zero.
This law, by the way, is still in effect. That
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was used in a tempt to get the damages of
the Deep Water Horizon disaster capped at twenty seven billion dollars.
The Princess Sofia case was appealed all the way to
the Ninth Circuit Court, and the Supreme Court declined to
hear it. In the end, CPR settled for six hundred
forty three dollars and fifty cents, which was less than
two dollars for each victim. Meanwhile, the company did get
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a payment of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars from
its ensure. The Lynn Canal is still overwhelmingly how people
get to and from Skagway, Alaska, although there is a
year round highway connection and small plane service today. But
the canal is also much safer today than it was
in nine eighteen, and it is a popular route for
Alaska cruises. The buoy that had been visible only by
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day was replaced with a light, and of course navigation
and sonar technologies are far more advanced than they were
one hundred years ago. Ultimately, the s S Princess Sofia
was a total loss and the wreck is still there
the Lynn Canal Today it's a popular dive site, with
some divers saying that it's haunted. Keepers at the nearby
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Sentinel Lighthouse have also attributed ghostly noises to the Princess
Safayatt's passengers. Do you have um ghostly email? I do
have email, and the title of it is my air
conditioning horror question mark story. So that's see a little appropriate. Uh.
It is from Amelia, and Amelia says Hi, Holly and Tracy.
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I'm currently listening to the History of air Conditioning. I
had a story sometime in the last five to seven
minutes of the podcast. You mentioned that hospitals were somewhat
slow to get air conditioning anyway. I spent a month
in Italy this summer May doing a study abroad project
with a few of my friends. Italy is really hot
in the summer, and even was quite warm eighties to
ninety degrees fahrenheit in May when I was there. They
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also do not have a ton of air conditioning, but
generally a lot of vernacular architecture. I am someone with
a chronic illness, so a flare up is always possible,
but I didn't think it would happen. I was wrong.
I ended up being hospitalized for a week in Italy,
and I don't think I have ever swept so much
in my life. The hospital I was admitted to is
a very old hospital scheduled to be demolished in August
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of this year, and my room there looked like there
was a ceiling vent, but the nurses said it was
not working. So at this point my room was probably
eighty five degrees fahrenheit of stagnant air. I decided I
could not stay in my sweaty clothes, so I removed
as much as I could. Given the i V I
was connected to as night felt it was still too
(31:36):
hot to sleep. I asked one of the nurses as
best I could if they had a fan I could use,
and she came back with a six by twelve inch
piece of cardboard. This piece of cardboard was the single
best thing I had for this whole week. It was
my only salvation from the oppressive and stagnant heat. I
had a very strong right wrist after that one week,
just from the repetitive motion of fanning myself with the cardboard.
(31:59):
Friends came to is It one evening and one of
the first things they said was about the temperature. Ultimately,
I came back to the States after being discharged. I'm
a okay now. I even attended your live show in
d C last week. My study abroad experience definitely did
not go as planned, but I now have several stories
about Italian hospitals and just Italy. I hope you both
enjoyed the story. I try to tell it as often
(32:20):
as I can. Amelia, thank you so much for sharing
this story with us. Amelia. That sounds miserable like being
sick in another country. Do you even start being sick
somewhere where you don't get to have your own bed?
Being sick when you're traveling you're in paradise sucks, yeah,
And then being sick when you're traveling, being sick when
(32:42):
you're traveling in another country, being sick when you're traveling
in another country and it's hot and there's no air
conditioning like that just sounds like heaps on heaps of misery.
So I'm very very glad you're okay now and that
you told this story and that it all worked out fine. Yeah.
We we continue to get various emails about people's experience
in non air conditioned places. If you would like to
(33:03):
write to us about this or any other podcast, where
History podcasts at how stuff Works dot com. And then
we are all over social media at miss in History.
That is where you will find our Facebook and our
Instagram and our Pinterest in our Twitter. You can come
to our website, which is missed in History dot com
and you will find a searchable archive of every episode
we've ever done and show notes for all the episodes
Holly and I have done. And you can subscribe to
(33:24):
our podcast on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, wherever else you
get your podcasts. For more on this and thousands of
other topics, visit how Stuff works dot com,
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. We're coming
up on the hundredth anniversary of the sinking of the
s S Princess of Faia, which sank in the Lynn
(00:23):
Canal in southeastern Alaska on October This was a massive
tragedy for both Canada and the United States. It had
a huge impact on Alaska, British Columbia, and Yukon, but
it was also really overshadowed by the end of World
War One and the flu pandemic that was going on
by that point, so it has been nicknamed the Unknown
(00:46):
Titanic of the West Coast. In eighteen the primary way
to get to many parts of Alaska and Yukon was
by water. Ships carried passengers, cargo and mail to ports
along the coast of Alaska and British Columbia, and people
traveled by river inland from there. And to some extent,
this continues to be true today. Although there are more
(01:07):
roads and airplanes going to and from these places, boats
still continue to be a major way to travel. One
of the companies that was providing passenger and cargo service
along the coast of Alaska and British Columbia was Canadian
Pacific Railway Company, which is often abbreviated as CPR that
still exists today as Canadian Pacific. CPR started a steamship business,
(01:30):
which was called Canadian Pacific Steamship Company in a late
eighteen hundreds. Their first routes were trans Pacific and they
connected Vancouver, British Columbia with Asia. Soon the company started
offering transatlantic service from the east coast of North America
as well. In the early twentieth century, Canadian Pacific Steamship
(01:50):
Company started providing service up and down the coast of
the Pacific Northwest. To that end, CPR purchased Canadian Pacific
Navigation Company in n one. The newly purchased company had
been carrying passengers and cargo along the coast of British
Columbia as well as through Alaska's Inside Passage. So the
(02:11):
Inside Passage is a collection of fiords, channels and straits
that stretches more than a thousand miles. It's about six
hundred kilometers from Seattle, Washington north through British Columbia, to Skagway, Alaska.
The vessels that CPR operated along these routes were nicknamed
the Princess Fleet, and all the ships had the word
Princess and their names. The Princess Fleet grew really quickly
(02:34):
during the first two decades of the twentieth century, and
the company was supporting the tourism industry in addition to
carrying the workers, families, cargo, and mail that needed to
get around that area. This growth didn't really slow down
during World War One. Although some of CPR ships were
requisitioned for the war effort, people still needed to get
to and from all these places, and the best way
(02:55):
to do it was still by water. People from the
US and Canada who had the means to travel for fun,
we're also choosing to do it in North America rather
than visiting increasingly war torn Europe. During the war, the
Princess Fleet also started carrying troops, including people who had
enlisted and were reporting for duty. The s S Princess
(03:16):
Sofia was, of course part of this fleet. It was
built by bou McLaughlin and Company, was launched on November
eighth of nineteen eleven and took its maiden voyage on
June seventh. On the following year, the Princess Safia had
been commissioned specifically for running these routes along the inside passage.
During the May to October season and the off season,
(03:37):
the ship operated as a ferry between Victoria and Vancouver,
British Columbia. The Princess Sofia was built to be a
modest but comfortable vessel, suited for both passengers and cargo
in these northern waters. It was two forty five ft
or seventy five ms long, with a maximum speed of
thirteen to fourteen knots. It's typical running speed was eleven knots.
(04:00):
Under normal conditions. The Princess Sofia carried between two hundred
fifty and three hundred fifty passengers, but that number could
be increased all the way up to five hundred in
special circumstances and with special permission. The ship's typical route
had four stops in British Columbia and four in Alaska
from north to south. These were Victoria, Vancouver, Alert Bay
(04:22):
and Prince British Columbia, and Wrangel Catkan, Juneau and Skagway, Alaska.
The stops in Juneo and Skaguay were also really important
to communities in Yukon since they were connected to the
Yukon interior by water. Even with an experienced and capable crew,
this route could be really treacherous. The s S Princess
(04:42):
Sofia had a number of incidents before sinking in nineteen eighteen,
some of them serious. The ship collided with something under
water in November of nineteen thirteen, which broke its stern post,
and it also ran aground twice, once in April of
nineteen thirteen and again in January, and there were also
many more minor incidents over the years. One particularly treacherous
(05:07):
stretch of the route that the Princess of File was
usually taking was the Lynn Canal. In spite of what
its name suggests, the Lynn Canal isn't an artificial waterway.
It's a fjord that's part of the inside passage. Captain
George Vancouver named it after his birthplace of King's Lynn.
The Lynn Canal is very narrow. It ranges from about
(05:28):
three to thirteen miles or roughly five to twenty kilometers wide,
and it is also very windy. The shape of the
canal funnels the wind, so wind speeds of seventy to
eighty knots are not uncommon. On top of that are
willow waws, which are sudden, violent squalls and winds that
blow in off the surrounding glaciers, making the Lynn Canal
(05:51):
even more dangerous than all that wind and the squalls.
Is the Vanderbilt Reef, which is a stretch of about
seven miles or eleven kilometers of rock that's right in
the middle of the fiord. The tides create a huge
variation and how deep the water is around the reef.
Most of the time it is just under the surface,
but during very low tides, it can be as much
(06:12):
as twelve feet or about three and a half meters
above the surface. Obviously, this reef has been there for
thousands of years and people knew that it existed, but
in terms of being a hazard to commercial shipping, it
was first noted in eighteen eighty when J. M. Vanderbilt
of the Northwest Trading Company charted it and named it
after himself, and then spread the word to other captains
(06:35):
about it. In nineteen eighteen, the Vanderbilt Reef wasn't well
marked at all. The nearest lighthouse was the Sentinel Island Lighthouse,
which is about four miles or six and a half
kilometers away. The reef itself was marked with a buoy
that was only visible by daylight. CPR had asked the
US government to install a light on the reef in
nineteen seventeen. Although Canadian vessels were in and out of
(06:59):
this area all the time, the reef itself was part
of Alaska Territory and therefore it was the responsibility of
the United States and not Canada to put a light there,
but because of the war, funding wasn't set aside to
do it. The s S Princess Sofia departed Skagway, Alaska
at the end of the Lynn Canal on October twenty three,
nineteen eighteen, for the last run of the season, and
(07:22):
this was a big trip every year. The ship was
sold out and the company had prepared for a big crowd,
but even in spite of the advanced preparations, boarding and
loading that evening had been particularly chaotic. There were people
who had made their way to the region during the
Klondike gold Rush. Skagway itself had been founded during the
gold Rush. By this point, the gold rush was over
(07:44):
and this departing crowd included people who had decided finally
to leave Alaska and the North entirely. It also included
seasonal miners whose jobs were ending for the winter, but
who planned to come back again in the spring. Miners
weren't the only scenal employees leaving Skagway that day. The
Yukon River connected Skagway, Alaska to Dawson, Yukon, and the
(08:07):
steamship operators who traveled that route were shutting down for
the season. Two other passengers included government officials, business travelers,
and families, and there were also new recruits aboard reporting
for duty in World War One. Because this was the
last run of the season, the mood at the dock
was really festive. It was basically a big Sea in
(08:28):
the Spring party, with the people who were staying put
getting ready to hunker down for the winter. A lot
of people were also bidding what they thought was a
temporary farewell to friends and family who were planning to
come back once all the waterways thought in the following spring.
Probably because of all the business and chaos, the s
S Princess Sofia left Skagway, Alaska at about ten pm
(08:49):
on the twenty three that was about three hours behind schedule.
Captain Leonard Locke was at the helm, and most of
the Princess Sofia's crew had plenty of experiences on this route,
and Locke was no exception. He had been working in
the waterways in this part of the Northwest for twenty
five years. But not long after departing, the weather really
(09:10):
started to turn sour. We will get to that after
a quick sponsor break. About an hour after leaving Skagway, Alaska,
the s S Princess Safia rounded battery point and met
a terrible storm. Winds were blowing at about fifty knots
(09:33):
and a heavy snow and fog had rolled in. Under
normal procedures, Locke would have slowed his speed from the
typical running speed of about eleven knots down to seven knots,
but instead, possibly because they were running so late, he
kept the ship running at eleven knots. Many of the
technologies used for navigation and avoiding collisions today did not
(09:55):
exist yet, or they were in their infancy. The first
passive sonar system for detecting submerged objects was developed in
nineteen and the first active sonar system was created in
nine eighteen so this technology was still brand new and
was being used to detect submarines and military vessels, but
it really wasn't in use in civilian vessels at all yet,
(10:17):
practical radar systems were still a couple of decades away.
By daylight ships navigated the Limb Canal by taking compass
readings while citing known points on the land and the
dark and in bad weather, what they would do is
sound the ship's horn and then count the time until
they heard the echo off the surrounding cliffs and glaciers.
(10:38):
That's one of those things that when people describe it,
I know people used this all the time, very safely.
To me, this is terrifying. Well, and I mean that
was an imprecise way of doing it, even under good circumstances. Yes,
And of course as the storm got worse, it probably
became harder and harder to hear those echoes, and soon
(11:00):
the Princess Sofia was blown off course. Rather than to
one side of the canal where they were supposed to be,
they were right in the middle. The Princess Sofia struck
the Vanderbilt Reef at about two am on October, traveling
at their usual speed of eleven knots. The ship came
to a total halt almost instantly, with sleeping passengers being
(11:23):
thrown from their births and crew being thrown from their stations.
At first, the situation seemed to be extremely inconvenient, but
not all that perilous. The ship was firmly jammed on
the rocks, but didn't seem to be badly damaged. Once
everyone recovered from the shock and the physical effects of
being thrown around, most of the passengers really remained calm.
(11:46):
People who had minor injuries were patched up, and some
damage within the ship was repaired. At first, Captain Locke
thought they might be floated off of the rocks the
next high tide and just continue on their way. That
is actually what had happened when the Princess Sofia had
run aground in April of nineteen, which had also happened
on the Vanderbilt Reef. Passenger R. S. McQueen wrote a
(12:09):
letter during these relatively calm hours which said quote, she
is a double bottom boat and her inner hall is
not penetrated, so here we stick. She pounds some on
a rising tide, and it is slow writing, but our
only inconvenience is so far lack of water. The main
steam pipe got twisted off, and we were without lights
(12:29):
last night and have run out of soft sugar. But
the pipe is fixed, so we are getting heat and
lights now and we still have lump sugar and water
for drinking. If you have the energy and the note
that they're out of soft sugar, right, things seem fine.
They don't seem that bad at that point. So, of course,
after hitting the Vanderbilt reef, the ship's wireless operator had
(12:51):
sent out a distress call. There weren't any other vessels
in the area that were large enough to accommodate all
the Princess Sofia's passengers and crew, though, so four phishing
vessels were sent to try to assist. These were the Stab,
the Amy, the E a Heg, and the Peterson. Soon
a fishing schooner called the King and Wing came to assist,
(13:13):
as well as the Cedar, which was a lighthouse tender
from the U S Lighthouse Service. As these vessels started
to arrive on the morning of the twenty four though,
the weather got worse. The other vessels couldn't get close
to the Princess Sofia without endangering themselves, and it became
clear that a cross wind was grinding the ship onto
the rocks, and that was making a visible hole in
(13:35):
the outer hole. Captain Locke thought it would be more
dangerous to try to put people into lifeboats than it
would be to just stay put and wait for the
weather to turn, and the barometer was rising, so he
was hopeful that better weather was on the way. High
tide also came and went without shifting the boat off
the rocks. The wind was blowing the water so hard
(13:57):
that the tide appeared to be several feet lower than
it really was. They weren't hoping to be lifted off
the rocks anymore now that it was clear that the
hall was damaged, but with all that having happened, it
didn't seem like they would be, so with all that
in mind, it seemed safer to just wait. The captain's
decision may have also been influenced by the nineteen o
(14:19):
four wreck of the S S. Klalum, which foundered just
outside of Victoria Harbor, and on that ship, the captain
ordered all of the women and children to be evacuated
into lifeboats along with some of the men, and every
lifeboat either capsized or was wrecked. Everyone who had been
evacuated died. Captain Locke also would have been familiar with
(14:40):
the nineteen ten stranding of the Princess May on nearby
Sentinel Island, from which all the passengers and crew were
evacuated safely. It turned out that barometer reading was deceptive, though.
The barometer started falling rapidly at about three pm on
and the weather suddenly got a whole lot worse. A
Royal Canadian Mounted Police report that was written after the
(15:04):
disaster called it, quote the worst storm in progress ever
known in the Lynn Canal. During all of this, the
Princess Sofia was communicating with all these other vessels by radio,
megaphone and radiogram, which is a telegram that's sent by
radio rather than over wires. Radiograms were sent back and
forth to CPR headquarters as well. Captain Lack sent a
(15:27):
radiogram to the Cedar at four or forty five pm. Quote,
impossible to get passengers off tonight as c is running
too strong. Will probably be able to get them off
early morning, strong tide. Captain Leadbetter aboard the Cedar replied, quote,
if Sofia in no danger slipping off and passengers safe
(15:47):
until daylight. Would like to drop anchor under Sentinel Island,
be in touch by wireless if you think necessary, will
remain under way all night. By this point, the passengers,
who had been waiting for more than all hours, were
becoming increasingly apprehensive. Passenger John R. Maskell, known as Jack,
wrote a letter to his fiance Dorothy Burgess, which ended quote,
(16:09):
We're expecting the lights to go out at any minute.
Also the fires the boat might go to pieces for
the force of the waves are terrible, making awful noises
on the side of the boat, which has quite a
list to port. No one is allowed to sleep, but
believe me, dear Dorry, it might have been much worse.
Just here there is a big steamer coming. We struck
(16:29):
the reef in a terrible snowstorm. There is a big
buoy near marking the danger, but the captain was to
port instead to starboard the buoy. I made by will
this morning, leaving everything to you, my own true love,
and I want you to give a hundred pounds to
my dear mother, a hundred pounds to my dear dad,
a hundred pounds to dear wee Jack, and the balance
of my estate about three hundred pounds to you, Dory dear.
(16:53):
The Eagle Lodge will take care of my remains. Endanger
at sea, Princess Safia October eighteen. In the face of
the treacherous weather, the rescue ships left to seek shelter,
and the Princess Sofia spent the night on the rocks.
On the morning of oct the rescue ships returned to
try again. The captain of the Cedar proposed making a
(17:15):
bridge is buoy, which she might also say as a
breach is buoy. To do this, the cedar would drop
an anchor and run a line over to the Princess Sofia.
People would then use it like a zip line, sliding
from the Princess Sofia over to the Cedar one at
a time. The name of this comes from the practice
of slinging a pair of canvas bridges over the line
to hang on to. We can do historical zip line
(17:38):
tours this way. I think we have a business venture
in our future. But the water was still so rough
that the cedars anchor simply would not hold. At eleven
am on the twenty, led Better sent a radiogram quote
I can't make anchors hold could not row boat to
you at present. Believe your passengers are perfectly safe until
(17:59):
we and moderates. We'll stand by until safe to make
transfer with safety. As the violent storm continued, the rescue
ships were once again driven away to take shelter, but
kept in touch with the Princess of Fia. What had
been a tedious but relatively safe weight became terrifying. After
all the rescue vessels were gone. The wind was howling
(18:23):
and pounding the ship into the rocks. The power went
out about three o'clock in the afternoon, which meant most
of the passengers were in total darkness with a screaming,
violent storm going on around them. E. M. Miller of
the King and Wing later sent the summary of what
happened by radiogram quote. Talked with Sophia several times between
(18:44):
two and three pm. Their dynamo went out and lost
power about three PM. Called the Sofia several times between
four thirty and four forty five PM. No answer five
forty five Talking to s s Atlas gave him seven
messages for to you know fourty pm Sofia sending s
O S said taking water and foundering for God's sake,
(19:07):
come and save us, replied, saying coming full speed, but
cannot see account thick snow and taking heavy seas. Told S.
S Atlas better come and tried to get Juno, and
then kept on with Safia until five twenty, when his
battery was so weak it was almost impossible to understand him.
Told him to quit talking except for what was absolutely necessary.
(19:31):
He replied, all right, but for God's sake, hurry water
coming in room. No more was heard from him. The
S s Atlas, which had left Juno at about four
PM to try to help, also sent a telegram to
the Cedar at five thirty PM on describing near progress
to try to join the rescue as quote, feeling our
(19:52):
way in blinding snowstorm. It was just too dangerous for
any of these other ships to stay with the Princess Sofia.
That's why they had all once again gone away to
seek shelter. The weather finally cleared overnight, and at nine
fifteen on the morning of October, a lighthouse superintendent from
Sentinel Island sent a radio graham saying he had arrived
(20:14):
at the scene at eight thirty and only the Princess
Sofia's foremast was visible above the surface of the water.
We're going to take another quick moment for a brief
sponsor break. Sometimes between five thirty and six thirty pm
(20:35):
on October after all the rescue ships had gone to
try to take shelter, the high wind and the tide
had combined to twist the s s Princess Sofia completely
around on top of Vanderbilt Reef, causing it to point
north instead of south, and the process it tore the
bottom completely out of the ship. The ship slid into
(20:56):
the water, tanks ruptured and covered the water's surface a
thick layer of oil. An order was apparently given to
abandon ship, and some lifeboats were deployed, but none of
them were deployed successfully. Only one person seems to have
gotten away from the actual sinking, Frank Gussie, the ship's
second officer. He was found on shore, but he had
(21:19):
died of exposure. The recks only confirmed survivor was a
dog an English center, who was found covered in oil
about twenty miles or thirty two kilometers to the south
two days later. The exact death toll for this wreck
is unclear. There were probably between two d and two
D nine passengers on board and fifty five to sixty
(21:42):
five crew. A list of known passengers includes three hundred
sixty people, but there were definitely stowaways on board, as
well as people who boarded in Skagway planning to work
for their passage, but who weren't written down. Babies in
arms also weren't necessarily on the passenger list. The victims
(22:02):
included more than a hundred residents of Dawson, Yukon, which
only had a population of about eight hundred at that time.
Approximately eight percent of the white population of Yukon died.
Similar numbers for the indigenous population of Canada and Alaska
aren't really known. But Walter Harper, who was an Athabaskan
(22:23):
guide and the first person to summit to Nally, was
killed along with his wife Francis. Some writers have made
the argument that this was economically catastrophic for Yukon and
led to a serious decline for the territory and for
all of the Canadian North, but really there was a
lot of other stuff going on at the same time
as well, including the flu pandemic and changes to the
(22:45):
mining industry. So this was definitely a tragedy that had
a real impact, but it was not the only factor.
John F. Pugh, who was District Collector of US Customs
for Alaska, was also on board, along with Walter J. O'Brien,
who was a CPR Company agent from Dawson. He was
on the ship with his wife and five children, and
was found with his arms around one of his sons.
(23:08):
The passengers also included eighty five members of riverboat crews
that operated out of Skagway, which destroyed the riverboat Company's
workforce for that route completely. So after it was discovered
that the ship had sunk, what had been a rescue
effort immediately turned to recovery. More than a hundred bodies
were recovered in the first hour. Many of the people
(23:30):
had drowned or died of exposure, but another major cause
of death was asphyxiation, either because people got caught up
in the oil slick and couldn't breathe, or because of
the build up of gases inside the vessel as its
operating systems blue. The oil slick also caused wildlife deaths,
including the deaths of flocks of ducks. The s S
(23:51):
Princess Safaia itself was quickly determined not to be salvageable,
or at least not salvageable until spring, but the effort
to recover bodies went on for weeks. A total of
on bodies were eventually recovered, some of them many miles
away from the wreck itself. Initially, the bodies were housed
in an empty warehouse in Juno that was used as
(24:14):
a temporary mortuary, with members of the community cleaning the
oil from the bodies. Divers were also sent to recover
a safe full of gold that had been on board,
and they returned with a body as well. The bodies
of Canadian residents were sent to Vancouver aboard the Princess Alice,
which was nicknamed the Ship of Sorrow because of this
sad duty. But the Princess Alice arrived in Vancouver on
(24:37):
November eleven, nineteen eighteen, which was Armistice Day, so the
mood in Vancouver when the ship actually got there was
exuberant because at the end of the war, the mayor
had the flags blown at half staff for an hour.
On the twelfth, Thomas Riggs Jr. Territorial Governor of Alaska,
issued a statement after learning the news of the wreck,
quote wreck of the Princess Safia has cast a great
(24:59):
chew At overall of Northland, Alaska grieves with the Yukon,
and he also sent a message to the U. S
Secretary of the Interior calling it the quote most ghastly
incident in the history of the territory. Of course, this
is a massive tragedy and there were immediate cults for
an end quest. But there were also a lot of
questions and complications because of the international nature of the disaster.
(25:23):
It had happened in Alaska, and virtually everyone involved in
the rescue attempt was American, but it was a Canadian ship,
and many of the people who died aboard were Canadian,
most of them from Yukon. There was also the question
of how and what exactly to investigate, because everyone who
could have been questioned about what happened aboard the Princess
(25:43):
Safia was dead. The first official inquiry was held January six,
nine nineteen, at Bastion Square Court House in Victoria, British Columbia.
Witnesses from the rescue vessels offered testimony about how treacherous
Lynn Canal was, but some also raised doubts about whether
Locke had made the right decisions. A big point of
(26:05):
contention was the Sufist traveling at eleven knots rather than
at seven. The other was the decision not to evacuate
Captain Cornelia Stidham aboard the Peterson and Captain Miller of
the King and Wing both said that the evacuation would
have been possible during a very brief window of time
before the wind really picked up. Captain James Davis of
(26:27):
the Estabethan Edward McDougal of the Amy backed them up
in this opinion. These judgments, though, were made with the
benefit of hindsight and knowing how the weather progressed after
that call was made to stay put, and everyone agreed
that even if some people had been rescued in this
window of relatively less treacherous weather, many others would still
(26:48):
have died. There were also other captains who had the
opposite opinion. According to one inspector from the Royal Canadian
Mounted Police quote, I have interviewed several deep sea captains
and are all of the same opinion that given similar
conditions and circumstances, they would have acted exactly as did
Captain Locke. It is considered that he acted as any
(27:10):
level headed seafaring man would have done, and while his
error of judgment caused the loss of so many lives
it is considered simply an act of providence. The inquiry
was closed on March tenth, nineteen, and taken to Parliament
on April twenty three. In the end, no blame was
placed on Lock or on CPR. The U S vessels
(27:31):
that came to assist were compensated for their time and
efforts in a small payment was given to families. American
relatives of the victims filed a class action suit in
the United States, and that dragged on for fourteen years.
At first, a U S. District Court judge found that
CPR was negligent and CPR was fined two point five
(27:53):
million dollars to be paid to the families of the
passengers and crew, plus a million dollars of court costs,
But the judge reversed this decision a couple of weeks later,
saying that this tragedy fell under the Limited Liabilities Act
of eighteen fifty one, so all CPR was responsible for
was the cost of fairs and baggage. The Limited Liabilities
(28:15):
Act of eighteen fifty one was crafted to mimic limited
liability laws that were already in effect. In other countries,
there wasn't any such thing as comprehensive insurance for shipping companies,
and because American companies had no limits to their liability
in the event of a disaster, they faced much higher
potential costs. So a law was drafted to try to
(28:37):
make shipping companies operating out of the United States more
competitive with similar businesses operating out of other countries. This
law limited a company's liability to the value of the
ship and the cargo after a disaster, so if the
ship was a total loss, that value might actually be zero.
This law, by the way, is still in effect. That
(28:59):
was used in a tempt to get the damages of
the Deep Water Horizon disaster capped at twenty seven billion dollars.
The Princess Sofia case was appealed all the way to
the Ninth Circuit Court, and the Supreme Court declined to
hear it. In the end, CPR settled for six hundred
forty three dollars and fifty cents, which was less than
two dollars for each victim. Meanwhile, the company did get
(29:22):
a payment of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars from
its ensure. The Lynn Canal is still overwhelmingly how people
get to and from Skagway, Alaska, although there is a
year round highway connection and small plane service today. But
the canal is also much safer today than it was
in nine eighteen, and it is a popular route for
Alaska cruises. The buoy that had been visible only by
(29:46):
day was replaced with a light, and of course navigation
and sonar technologies are far more advanced than they were
one hundred years ago. Ultimately, the s S Princess Sofia
was a total loss and the wreck is still there
the Lynn Canal Today it's a popular dive site, with
some divers saying that it's haunted. Keepers at the nearby
(30:07):
Sentinel Lighthouse have also attributed ghostly noises to the Princess
Safayatt's passengers. Do you have um ghostly email? I do
have email, and the title of it is my air
conditioning horror question mark story. So that's see a little appropriate. Uh.
It is from Amelia, and Amelia says Hi, Holly and Tracy.
(30:29):
I'm currently listening to the History of air Conditioning. I
had a story sometime in the last five to seven
minutes of the podcast. You mentioned that hospitals were somewhat
slow to get air conditioning anyway. I spent a month
in Italy this summer May doing a study abroad project
with a few of my friends. Italy is really hot
in the summer, and even was quite warm eighties to
ninety degrees fahrenheit in May when I was there. They
(30:51):
also do not have a ton of air conditioning, but
generally a lot of vernacular architecture. I am someone with
a chronic illness, so a flare up is always possible,
but I didn't think it would happen. I was wrong.
I ended up being hospitalized for a week in Italy,
and I don't think I have ever swept so much
in my life. The hospital I was admitted to is
a very old hospital scheduled to be demolished in August
(31:14):
of this year, and my room there looked like there
was a ceiling vent, but the nurses said it was
not working. So at this point my room was probably
eighty five degrees fahrenheit of stagnant air. I decided I
could not stay in my sweaty clothes, so I removed
as much as I could. Given the i V I
was connected to as night felt it was still too
(31:36):
hot to sleep. I asked one of the nurses as
best I could if they had a fan I could use,
and she came back with a six by twelve inch
piece of cardboard. This piece of cardboard was the single
best thing I had for this whole week. It was
my only salvation from the oppressive and stagnant heat. I
had a very strong right wrist after that one week,
just from the repetitive motion of fanning myself with the cardboard.
(31:59):
Friends came to is It one evening and one of
the first things they said was about the temperature. Ultimately,
I came back to the States after being discharged. I'm
a okay now. I even attended your live show in
d C last week. My study abroad experience definitely did
not go as planned, but I now have several stories
about Italian hospitals and just Italy. I hope you both
enjoyed the story. I try to tell it as often
(32:20):
as I can. Amelia, thank you so much for sharing
this story with us. Amelia. That sounds miserable like being
sick in another country. Do you even start being sick
somewhere where you don't get to have your own bed?
Being sick when you're traveling you're in paradise sucks, yeah,
And then being sick when you're traveling, being sick when
(32:42):
you're traveling in another country, being sick when you're traveling
in another country and it's hot and there's no air
conditioning like that just sounds like heaps on heaps of misery.
So I'm very very glad you're okay now and that
you told this story and that it all worked out fine. Yeah.
We we continue to get various emails about people's experience
in non air conditioned places. If you would like to
(33:03):
write to us about this or any other podcast, where
History podcasts at how stuff Works dot com. And then
we are all over social media at miss in History.
That is where you will find our Facebook and our
Instagram and our Pinterest in our Twitter. You can come
to our website, which is missed in History dot com
and you will find a searchable archive of every episode
we've ever done and show notes for all the episodes
Holly and I have done. And you can subscribe to
(33:24):
our podcast on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, wherever else you
get your podcasts. For more on this and thousands of
other topics, visit how Stuff works dot com,
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Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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