Digital Bob Archive

The Prince of Wales carried the mail from Juneau to Sitka and wayports from July 1, 1916, until June 30, 1918, and during those years encountered two of the most severe winters the area had experienced since Juneau was founded in 1881.
The vessel was just not built to cope with the low temperatures and high winds. At best, in any kind of sea she rolled heavily, and it was feared that if she iced up she might just keep on rolling. Thus, the Prince of Wales spent a lot of time at the dock when she should have been out delivering the mail, and a lot of time anchored behind Shelter Island on her outbound voyage, or at Funter Bay when inbound, waiting for the wind to abate so she could get around Point Retreat.

Three days before Christmas in 1917 the Prince of Wales was tied to the City Dock in Juneau, where she had been for more than two weeks. The thermometer stood at 3 degrees and the wind was described as \"very strong.\" The warehouse held 100 tons of freight and a two weeks accumulation of mail for Sitka and wayports, and 30 passengers waited impatiently in local hotels. One of them was Sitka merchant W.P. Mills. The steamer Despatch of the Seattle Steamship Company was due in Juneau that day but was not scheduled to go to Sitka. Mills wired the company and arranged for the steamer to deliver the passengers, freight and mail to Sitka, and they got there in time for Christmas, but at least eight wayports on the mail route had to wait another couple of weeks for their letters and parcels.

The Juneau Commercial Club was constantly bombarded by complaints from the ports along the mail route, and it made some attempts to remedy the poor service. The Club negotiated with the Post Office to get three local routes - to Skagway, Sitka and Kake-Port Walter - awarded to one vessel capable of giving good weekly service to each of them. Nothing came of that effort.

The Club then learned that the 125-foot motor schooner Tillamook was idle at Prince Rupert. She was then owned by the Canadian Grand Trunk Railroad but was an American flag vessel as she had been built in Oregon (some years later she would become the Norco of the Northland Transportation Company). The Canadians were not interested in putting her in the Alaska service.

The Prince of Wales was plagued by not only the weather but by wartime labor shortages. In June 1918, shortly before her contract ended, Captain Hull was stricken with influenza and Purser Noble was in the hospital for surgery. No unemployed mariners could be found but a Presbyterian minister, the Rev. David Waggoner, volunteered to take her out. Waggoner, who is perhaps best remembered here for his mouthful of gold teeth, had been running the mission boat Lois and had the necessary papers. Glen Bartlett, the manager of the Gastineau Hotel, went along as purser-mail clerk-deckhand.

The Prince of Wales had a varied career after her local mail contract ended and she ultimately burned in Icy Strait in 1944 while flying the Coast Guard flag.