Digital Bob Archive

Did the Islander hit an Iceberg? Or did she stray off course and hit the rocks of Douglas Island? Some of her passengers believed the latter, but it remains one of the unresolved questions concerning that tragic sinking on August 15, 1901.

There were plenty of other questions. Was there thick fog or was it all clear?
Her pilot claimed the latter but said fog began to form on the water as the Islander was sinking. Was the ship not beached because Captain Foote was trying to find a sandy beach, as the pilot, Edmund LeBlanc told it, or was it because she would not answer her helm when he tried to steer toward the nearest shore, as the man at the wheel contended?

Was Captain Foote drunk or sober? And in what condition were others of the ship's crew? Did Captain Foote go down standing on the bridge, as one crew member said, or was he on an overloaded life raft and swam away to give it more buoyancy, as a seaman testified? Was there a large shipment of gold bullion aboard the Islander or only the gold belonging to passengers? If there was a bullion shipment, where was it stowed? All of those questions were debated again and again, with no firm answers to any of them.

The Islander was a twin screw iron steamer, 240 feet in length, built in Scotland in 1888 for the Canadian Pacific Navigation Company. She arrived in Victoria in December of that year and was first placed on the run between Victoria and Vancouver. In May, 1889, she was chartered for a trip to Southeastern Alaska. \"A party of millionaires was aboard,\" reported The Alaskan at Sitka. \"They bought two souvenir paddles and five newspapers while here.\" In 1892 the Islander made at least three excursion trips as far north as Glacier Bay.

After the Klondike Rush started the Islander, like every other vessel in the Pacific Northwest, was kept busy carrying passengers and freight, including live cattle and sheep, to Skagway. Most of her passengers were going to or from Atlin, Whitehorse, Dawson and other points in Canada. On the fatal last trip most of those lost were from Dawson and included Mrs. J.H. Ross, the wife of the Commissioner of the Yukon, and the youngest of her six children. The other five had stayed with their father while she went south to buy furniture for their new home.

Because of the gold she was presumed to have been carrying, the Islander was frequently in the headlines long after the wreck story had faded. Her Purser, Harry F. Bishop, who survived the wreck and became postmaster at Victoria, said over and over that there was little gold, but the dream persisted. Said the magazine Railway and Marine News in 1915, \"it is estimated the treasure amounts to $500,000 to $2,000,000.\" The same paper in 1931 had upped the estimate to as much as $3,000,000.

In July, 1934, the hull of the Islander was dragged up on an Admiralty Island beach. Purser Bishop was right; there was little gold.