SS Princess Sophia: The Last Voyage from Skagway

In the early hours of 24 October 1918, the Canadian Pacific steamship SS Princess Sophia struck Vanderbilt Reef in the dark and snow-filled waters of Lynn Canal.

The ship did not sink immediately.

For almost forty hours, more than 350 passengers and crew remained aboard while rescue vessels gathered nearby. Rough seas, worsening weather and the dangerous position of the stranded ship made evacuation extraordinarily difficult. Remaining aboard appeared safer than attempting to transfer hundreds of people across the water.

Then the weather worsened, the damaged vessel was torn from the reef, and Princess Sophia disappeared beneath the sea. There were no human survivors.

This book reconstructs the final voyage from Skagway, the grounding on Vanderbilt Reef, the agonising decision to wait, the rescue ships that came close but could not remove the passengers, and the final wireless messages sent before the ship sank.

It also explores the northern transport system Princess Sophia served, the communities of Alaska, the Yukon and British Columbia that depended upon her route, the investigations and legal aftermath, and the devastating regional grief that followed.

The disaster occurred as the First World War was ending and the influenza pandemic was spreading. Overshadowed by larger events, one of the worst maritime disasters in Pacific Northwest history gradually faded from wider memory.

SS Princess Sophia is a respectful account of a northern shipwreck defined by waiting, difficult judgment, failed rescue and the haunting fact that help was close enough to see, but not close enough to save. The Alaska State Museum describes the wreck as the worst shipwreck in the Pacific Northwest and records the loss of more than 350 people.