Gustav Hansen, the Flying Dutchman

Romantic though it may seem to some today, Victoria’s famous sealing industry was a grim business.

Not only for the poor seal, slaughtered almost to extinction, but for the seamen who braved distant and dangerous seas to follow their elusive prize. It took men—real men—like Capt. Viktor Jacobsen, to name one.

Then there were the sealers of a different cloth who sailed from Victoria.

This tiny fraternity thumbed their noses at more than storm and killing fog: little obstacles like international law and three navies!

Rogues like Capt. Alex McLean, the legendary ‘Sea Wolf’ whom we’ve met before in these pages. And Capt. Gustav Hansen who also achieved notoriety if not lasting fame as the ‘Flying Dutchman’.

He’s the second outlaw to carry this title in British Columbia. And, like Henry Wagner, his fellow ‘Flying Dutchman,’ he, too, came to a sad end.

That’s next week in the Chronicles.

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PHOTO: From Victoria Harbour they sailed to the northern seal rookeries, risking storms and the navies of three nations.