Beachcombing: Mysteries Cast Up By the Sea
Because of the amount of driftwood that litters many B.C. beaches, beachcombing can be challenging--but rewarding. --Pinterest photo
I’m becoming a believer in coincidence.
I’d no sooner decided to write about beachcombing and secrets that have been given up—or withheld—by the sea than an article in the Times Colonist caught my eye. Researchers from Universite du Quebec a Rimouski are trying to determine if a letter that washed up in a bottle onto a New Brunswick beach in 2017 is genuine.
It purports to be written by Mathilde Lefevbre, a 13-year-old school girl from France who, with her mother and three siblings, went down with the Titanic. Did her eerie letter from beyond the grave float about in the Atlantic for more than a century before it was picked up on a beach in the Bay of Fundy?
You can find beautiful abalone shells on B.C. beaches—or buy them, like this one, online.
We’ve had similar spooky missives from the Twilight Zone turn up on B.C. beaches...
In June 1993 a chance discovery on a Vancouver Island beach brought happiness to
Sherri Prideaux, a Prince George woman. Her film canister, lost on a beach four years earlier, was found floating in the sea off Sooke's Point No Point. She was identified as the owner by a licence plate that was visible in one picture.
Prideaux got back a roll of irreplaceable family photos and acquired a one-of-a-kind anecdote.
But the sea is not always so generous. Often when it yields its booty, the reality is anything but heartwarming.
Sometimes, the sea washes in a hoax:
“Help, I am stranded at 20 degrees south latitude, 30 degrees west longitude.”
Neither dated nor signed, and corked inside a soft drink bottle, this faded appeal was written in ink on what appeared to be a Popsicle wrapper. Saanich police were skeptical but checked some charts. They showed Trinidada Island, a 2200-foot-high volcanic isle off the Brazilian coast, some 700 miles east of Rio de Janeiro.
The obvious suspicion that it was the work of youngsters was confirmed when the find was reported in the Victoria Colonist. Kim Ross, 13, of Port McNeill, admitted she and some friends had launched it and several other distress calls.
In 1944, Eugene Hunter and Bob Duke retrieved a port bottle in the waters off the Victoria Golf Club that read:
Long. 177 degrees West, sinking rapidly.
Under Spanish flag bound out of Fiiji [sic] to Peve, Otaherte.
Fire in forward holdway kept in control for 1 day now it has spread. This hour the mizzenmast fell.
We cannot last long.
I prey [sic] the finder of this missive to inform Aherles [Charles?] Manville at the Admiralty, London.
I commend myself to God.
Gilbert Hern,
1792.
What a story!
Alas, it was too good to be true.
The last will and testament of Gilbert Hern was penned on Canadian-milled paper bearing a Beaver watermark—eliminating any possibility of his having reached out 152 years later, unless it was from the Twilight Zone.
Sometimes the distress calls are all too real—and much too late to do anyone any good.
In 1924 the Haysport No. 2, a 21-ton coaster out of Vancouver, headed up-coast en route to a northern mine with a cargo of explosives. She was last sighted in a storm, heading seaward between Vancouver and Moresby islands.
Bits of wreckage turned up over the next few months. And then Butedale's D. Cordilla found the little freighter's last farewell:
“We are wrecked at Milbank [sic] Sound. No escape from drowning. Signed, Steamer Haysport.”
This time there was no suspicion of a prank.
Some 34 years before the Haysport sailed into oblivion, another puzzling note was found in a bottle at Clayoquot Sound and turned over to an employee of Charles Spring, trader, who forwarded it to Victoria. Written in lead pencil on the back of an envelope, it suggests impending tragedy on a stretch of shoreline notorious for its shipwrecks.
August 27, 1890 Mrs. McBride, La Conner, Mr. McBride, La Conner, Lillian Conner, La Conner, Anna Greenkran, Seattle.
Two Siwashes [a pejorative for Indigenous people].
All at Camp Delightful. One canoe missing. Don't know whether it got through safely or not. We are sitting in the centre of the pass. Amen
More than 130 years later, we can only echo the Colonist headline of the day: “What does it mean?”
All of which explains why police and scientists approach notes in bottles with skepticism, as in the most recent case of what’s purported to be Mathilde Lefevbre letter from the Titanic.
Without doubt, the story of the RMS Titanic striking an iceberg is the best known shipwreck of all time. —Wikipedia
Historical records and scientific examination of the note has yielded several factors favouring its authenticity as well as those against:
—Mathhilde was in fact lost, with her mother and sisters, in the sinking of the Titanic, April 13, 1912
—In her note she mentions that they will arrive in New York in a few days; that’s where they were bound, to meet up with Mr. Lefevbre
—On the other hand, this information is well known because of the Titanic’s historical significance
—Chemical analysis of the glass bottle and carbon dating of the cork and bits of paper used to seal the bottle yielded dates that are consistent with the early 20th century. (Tests weren’t conducted on the letter itself as these would damage the paper)
—Some experts question the style of writing, considering it to be inconsistent with French teaching standards and overly mature for a 12-year-old; they do concede that she could have had someone write it for her
—If it’s a hoax the use of older materials suggests an unusual level of sophistication
—Then there’s the matter of ocean currents and historical precedence—by far the bulk of debris from the Titanic drifted eastward across the Atlantic to wash up on European shores and the probability of Mathilde’s bottle drifting onto a New Brunswick beach, while not impossible, is considered to be “quite low”.
True or false? We’ll probably never know...
Often the sole, mute testimony to a ship's fate is in the form of shattered wreckage. Such was the case when HMS Condor sailed from Esquimalt on December 2, 1901. Accompanied by HMS Warspite, she was to conduct gunnery practice in the Strait of Juan de Fuca then continue on to Honolulu.
HMS Rinaldo of the Condor class without the original sailing ship rigging that’s thought to have contributed to the Condor’s loss with all hands after she sailed from Esquimalt. —Wikipedia
At nightfall the ships parted, Cmdr. Clifton Schlater heading Condor for the open sea in deteriorating weather. Hours later, a gale lashed the coast; neither the one-year-old sloop, namesake for her class, nor her 104-man company were seen again. Weeks passed without concern being expressed for her safety as the voyage to the Hawaiian Islands was a long one for a ship whose combination of steam propulsion and sail gave her a top speed of just over 13 knots.
But as more weeks passed without her arrival at Honolulu, HMS Phaeton was ordered to search for her. Finally Condor was posted as missing—the only British man-of-war lost on the Pacific station.
Then the sea yielded its first clue: a dinghy. Recovered near Ahousat, just south of Estevan Point, it was the only conclusive evidence that the three-masted warship had foundered.
Unfortunately, its new owner wouldn’t give it up to Cmdr. D.F. Tozier, U.S. Marine Revenue Service, who learned of its being in the man's possession, while assisting in the search for the Condor with the cutter USS Grant.
Try as he might, Tozier couldn’t get him to sell the battered dinghy—until he saw the commander's dress sword. Tozier countered unsuccessfully with other offers, then surrendered his blade. The dinghy was taken to Esquimalt. (Tozier's gallant act didn’t go unappreciated by the British government although it did take more than 20 years to replace his sword, courtesy of the late King Edward VII.)
More wreckage from the Condor—a grating and a signal locker—drifted ashore on Long Beach. Five months after she vanished, one of her lifebuoys was found off Banks Island by the master of the tug Muriel. For years, it has hung, near a commemorative plaque, in St. Paul's Garrison Church, Esquimalt. Condor's lifebuoy is a poignant reminder that the sea rarely yields its secrets and then, it seems, only in the form of teasers.
The Maritime Museum of British Columbia has two pathetic reminders of the S.S. Valencia, star of one of the worst shipwrecks in provincial history. After being driven ashore near the present site of Pachena lighthouse (built as a result), well over 100 (the numbers vary) men, women and children perished, all the while within sight of helpless rescuers.
“There were other shipping disasters when even more lives were lost,” wrote historian B.A. McKelvie, “but never had such a catastrophe occurred under such circumstances, [with] rescue vessels standing off, impotent to give aid, as pounding waves hammered the doomed ship to pieces and snatched and clawed helpless men and women from the rigging to destruction; and high above the crumbling and shapeless Valencia, men watched helplessly as passengers and crewmen died before their eyes.”
Artifacts from the ill-fated S.S. Valencia have long intrigued visitors to the Maritime Museum of British Columbia in Victoria. —Photo by John MacFarlane, Nauticapedia.
Only 37 made it to shore, on rafts, and in No. 5 lifeboat, under command of Bo'sun Timothy J. McCarthy. Twenty-seven years after the Valencia horror, old No. 5 drifted ashore in Barkley Sound. Despite more than a quarter-century's exposure to the elements, her paint was still good. This would indicate that she’d been sheltered, perhaps in one of the many sea-caves to be found along Vancouver Island's west coast. There have been rumours over the years of fishermen sighting other lifeboats, manned by skeletons.
Surely if ever a ship was haunted it should be the Valencia—“the worst and most ghastly story of a shipwreck on the disaster-studded west coast.”
Nanaimo's historic Bastion contains another haunting memento of maritime tragedy. Carved of wood and gilded, the little beaver once adorned the steam tug Estelle's wheelhouse. The Estelle and her eight-man crew are long gone, victims of an explosion off Cape Mudge, in February 1894. A life preserver bearing the tug's name, her shattered pilothouse and an engine room door were recovered on a beach near Campbell River. Initial conjecture was that the Estelle was another victim of deadly Ripple Rock, but the state of her few remains pointed to a devastating explosion. She was believed to be transporting dynamite.
For many years the Estelle's bell, recovered with the carved beaver from her wheelhouse, rang children to class at Quadra Island's Quathiaski schoolhouse—a haunting token from the sea which gives up little quarter and few of its secrets.
If you prefer more more tangible treasures as reward for your beachcombing, some of Vancouver Island's more remote west coast beaches can still yield some of the highly-popular (and now quite pricey) Japanese glass fishing floats which have attracted beachcombers for decades.
These come in various sizes and colours and are prized as decorations and conversation pieces in homes and gardens.
It took four years for volunteer clean-up crews to tackle the debris from the 2011 tsunami that devastated Japan. Everything, including the kitchen sink—an estimated five million tonnes—was launched into the sea and much of it carried to Vancouver Island's west coast by the Japanese Current. A saving grace was the fact that much of the recovered debris was recyclable. Unfortunately, some of the remoter coves and inlets were inaccessible and any debris remains.
Were any treasures found in the process? Probably, but if so, not reported in the news media. Not like in 1996 when it was reported that Vancouver Island's west coast beachcombers were harvesting a load of hockey equipment lost overboard from a Korean freighter, 15 months earlier. Alex Welcel of Bamfield spotted about 100 hockey gloves and some chest protectors over a two-week period.
Also lost with the 46 containers were loads of toys, clothes, electronic gear and produce. This incident barely made the news; not like the loss of a shipload of 80,000 Nike running shoes in 1990. The trick then was not in finding them but in trying to match them!
(On a more macabre note, there have been several discoveries in recent years of washed-in running shoes—with a human foot still inside.)
And, in March 2009, Nanaimo RCMP asked the public for help in finding homes for two wooden burial urns that had floated ashore.
In December 1997, Vancouver Island beachcombers were on the lookout for bales of marijuana which possibly floated free of a suspicious sailboat after it burned and sank off Cape Flattery on Washington's northwestern coast. The U.S. Coast Guard did recover 1700 kilos of the 2300 kilos supposed to have been on board the boat; the recovered marijuana was valued at $15 million!
A slight variation of ‘beachcombing’ took place in 1972 after the Vancouver-bound S.S. Vanlene lost her way and drove ashore near Austin Island at the entrance to Barkley Sound in a thick fog March 14, 1972. The crew were airlifted to safety and the stricken freighter drifted briefly then stuck fast, immediately offshore, and began to break up.
She was loaded with 300 Dodge Colts of which 131 were also evacuated by airlift. That left 170 on the dying ship—still dry, keys in the ignitions.
With the RCMP turning a blind eye to salvage efforts by locals, the rush was on!
As Times Colonist columnist Jack Knox described the resulting chaos in a retro article, salvors stripped the ship of lifeboats, radio gear, toilets, writing paper, linen, life rings, tools, tires and engines from the Colts which were already beginning to rust in the salty air.
The broken freighter Vanlene and her cargo of Japanese cars has all but disappeared since this photo was taken. —Nauticapedia
All the while the Vanlene rose and fell in the surf: “There would be 10, 15 people at a time slipping and sliding around the ship as it creaked and groaned, sometimes shifting suddenly...”
The free-for-all came to an end when what was left of the Vanlene and her Colt cargo slipped beneath the waves. She’s a popular diving site today and many a home in Ucluelet and Tofino still have souvenirs of her.
As you can see, the sea, like the Lord, both giveth and taketh. Sometimes, it seems, it defies the passage of time and presents beachcombers with poignant reminders of past tragedies. Yes, there are pranksters out there who try to deceive with their notes in bottles and the like.
Then there are those finds that are all too real and can’t be fully explained.
The sea guards her secrets well.
For decades, beachcombers have reaped a harvest of the attractive Japanese glass fishing floats on west coast Vancouver Island beaches. They’ve become highly prized—this one is posted on ebay for a mere $1750 U.S.
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