Site Navigation:
Searchable Databases
Articles Archive
Pacific Nautical Heritage...
- Gallery of Light and Buoy Images
- Gallery of Mariners
- Gallery of Ship Images
- Gallery of Ship Wrecks
- Gallery of Monuments and Statues
- Gallery of Nautical Images
- Gallery of Freshwater Images
- Gallery of New Books
Canadian Naval Topics…
- Nautical History Videos
- UNTD
- British Columbia Heritage
- Arctic and Northern Nautical Heritage
- Western Canada Boat and Ship Builders
- Gallery of Arctic Images
- Reflections on Nautical Heritage
- British Columbia Heritage
Site Search:
Looking for more? Search for Articles on the Nauticapedia Site.
The 1907 Stranding of the Passenger Ship Northwestern
by John MacFarlane 2017
The Northwestern stranded on the beach (Photo courtesy of the MMBC. )
In 1889 she was built at Chester PA USA as the Orizaba. 336' steel hull displacing 3497 tons.
In 1898 she was owned by Pacific Coast Co. and operated by the Pacific Coast Steamship Co. In 1905 she was owned by the Ward Line. In 1906 she was owned by the Northwestern Steamship Co. In 1908 she was taken over by the Alaska Steamship Co. Ltd. In 1940 she was sold to Siems–Drake–Puget Sound (a joint-venture organization engaged in Alaskan airfield construction and sponsored by the Puget Sound Bridge & Dredging Co., Seattle WA). She served as a barracks ship at Dutch Harbor AK and sustained a direct hit amdships by Japanese forces but was still afloat.
On 01/01/1910 she was damaged when the steamship Montara went adrift in the East Waterway of Seattle Harbor. In 1910 she went ashore on San Juan Island WA. In 1912 she had electric lights installed in the vessel. On 11/12/1927 she went ashore at Cape Mudge BC, re–floated in 1928. On 25 July 1933 she went ashore on the beach at Eagle River AK. She was re–floated a few days later when a high tide lifted her off with the help of a salvage tug.
The Northwestern (Photo courtesy of the MMBC. )
In 1907 she went ashore at Latorchu AK USA and was salvaged by the Salvor.
The Northwestern (Photo courtesy of the MMBC. )
The Northwestern (Photo courtesy of the MMBC. )
The Northwestern (Photo courtesy of the MMBC. )
To quote from this article please cite:
MacFarlane, John M. (2017) The 1907 Stranding of the Passenger Ship Northwestern. Nauticapedia.ca 2017. http://nauticapedia.ca/Gallery/Northwestern.php
Site News: April 19, 2024
The vessel database has been updated and is now holding 92,229 vessel histories (with 15,629 images and 13,195 records of ship wrecks and marine disasters). The mariner and naval biography database has also been updated and now contains 58,616 entries (with 4,013 images).
In 2023 the Nauticapedia celebrated the 50th Anniversary of it’s original inception in 1973 (initially it was on 3" x 5" file cards). It has developed, expanded, digitized and enlarged in those ensuing years to what it is now online. If it was printed out it would fill more than 300,000 pages!
My special thanks to our volunteer IT adviser, John Eyre, who (since 2021) has modernized, simplified and improved the update process for the databases into a semi–automated processes. His participation has been vital to keeping the Nauticapedia available to our netizens.
Also my special thanks to my volunteer content accuracy checker, John Spivey of Irvine CA USA, who has proofread thousands of Nauticapedia vessel histories and provided input to improve more than 11,000 entries. His attention to detail has been a huge unexpected bonus in improving and updating the vessel detail content.