Wreck offers up treasures from the past

Entertainment via commercial radio was but a glimmer in someone’s eye back in the 1900s

Entertainment via commercial radio was but a glimmer in someone’s eye back in the 1900s when the five-member crew of the steamboat A.J. Goddard plied the Yukon River, running supplies from Whitehorse to the Gold Rush unfolding in Dawson City. Even if it had existed, the A.J. Goddard’s far-north route would have put it well out of reception range.

Miles from comforts afforded by city living, the five crew members had more than the passing water, trees, mountains and each other to keep them company during the long hours on the river – they had music courtesy of a gramophone.

It along with three seven-inch records are among the 28 artifacts collected from the wreckage of the sternwheeler sitting on the bottom of Lake Laberge, where it sank in a storm in October of 1901.

“It would be really cool to know what they were listening to,” enthused Valery Monahan, conservator with the Yukon government’s museum program.

Spearheaded by local amateur historian Doug Davidge, he and researchers located the vessel in 2008 and the most recent of the 150 dives to the A.J. Goddard’s remains have produced a collection of artifacts now awaiting restoration.

In a tub of water at the Yukon Transportation Museum lay remnants of a hand-crank gramophone player, a seven inch record still stuck on its top and two more records pulled from the iron-hulled steamship.

“The things taken (from the wreck) were things we thought would be horribly tempting (for future visitors to take),” Monahan explained of why certain items were collected.

Also included in the find are a metal gear, ceramic cup, the vessel’s steam whistle, magnifying glass, shoes, lantern, steam gauge and three sealed bottles – ink, “bromo-seltzer” and what’s thought to be vanilla extract – still corked with their contents intact.

Primarily for their curiosity value, the boat’s steam gauge and gramophone will be sent to a special lab in Ottawa for expert restoration and both Monahan and Davidge believe history buffs could be in for a historic musical treat.

“Hopefully if we get (the gramophone and records) to the right people, they might be able to pull the track or portions of the track off and from there come up with the sound track that would fit in very well with the exhibit,” said Davidge, president of the transportation museum’s board. “And for the steam whistle, we may be able to find someone who actually recorded the sound of these types of whistles so if we find a match then we can include that too.”

The wreck of the A.J. Goddard and its discovery by Davidge continues to be the subject of much study and publicity.

Last year, it was National Geographic’s most viewed online feature story of 2009 and is thought to be the only untouched shipwreck from the Klondike Gold Rush.

Built in 1898 at shipyards in San Francisco and Seattle, the A.J. Goddard was brought to the Alaskan Panhandle, disassembled, dragged over what would become the White Pass rail route and reassembled at Bennett Lake.

For nearly three years, the 18-metre, 50-ton, iron-hulled vessel delivered men and supplies to the Klondike, but unlike the S.S. Klondike – in permanent drydock display in Whitehorse – the A.J. Goddard was strictly a workhorse.

No stately dining rooms or first class cabins can be found on the Goddard, whose cargo was sheltered by canvas wrapped around metal poles. While the boat had its own workshop area and kitchen, living conditions were austere.

Three of the crew perished after the A.J. Goddard sank and a trapper rescued the two survivors who were found clinging to the boat’s wheel house, which broke off the ship’s deck before it went under the waves.

According to a brief National Geographic video, just prior to the sinking it is believed the crew added more fuel to the fire “in a desperate attempt to steam to safety ... today, more than a century later, the boiler door still lies open with lightly-charred wood in the firebox.”

Davidge – inspired to find the A.J. Goddard by archeologist Norm Easton’s detailed historical survey of Yukon steamships – offers a window into the ship’s significance.

“It took part in the actual Gold Rush in spring of 1898 when all the people were congregating at Lake Bennett ... the Goddard was a part of that,” said Davidge. “It’s a very unique boat, a small iron-hulled vessel, and looking further afield in western Canada, so far we haven’t found anything like it and it could be the one and only left of that nature.”

Davidge said an exhibit of the A.J. Goddard’s artifacts, complete with its history and (fingers crossed) a sample of the music spinning on the ship’s gramophone, would likely open in a year’s time at the Yukon Transportation Museum.

At the beginning of June, the Yukon government declared the shipwreck a Yukon Historic Site under the Historic Resources Act.