up as the last miners staggered Passengers line the deck of the SS Islander as it leaves aboard from dockside saloons. The Vancouver on one of its northern jaunts. crowd on the pier cheered and a brass band struck up Hail Columbia as Capt. Foote eased his SS ISLANDER’S steamer into the strong current of the Lynn Canal. The 13-year-old Glasgow-built Islander was a sleek, steel-hulled steamer. Some 245-feet long and RumorsMYSTERY of a rich cache of Klondike goldGOLD spawned displacing 1500-tons, her coal-fed salvage efforts, which were almost as dramatic as the 1901 sinking of Canadian Pacific steamer SS Islander. However, even today new efforts are being planned to claim the elusive treasure BY IVAN BULIC he evening sun bathed the Vancouver and Seattle, Skagway docks with that slick gamblers, and a Tgolden light peculiar to the troupe of dance-hall girls, far north as Charlie Knox lugged fresh from the saloons of his heavy portmanteau up the Dawson City. Eleven triple expansion direct acting and Pilot Edmund LeBlanc on the the little stage and did a lively gangway of the SS Islander, pride stowaways, miners for engines pushed her at 15-knots. bridge while he went below to can-can, much to the delight of the of the Canadian Pacific coastal whom the Yukon had She was subdivided into six dinner. The evening was calm and mostly male passengers. fleet. Bewhiskered and tough as only meant failure, watertight compartments clear with only a few wisps of surface Off in a corner table, Charlie old shoe leather, Knox had been managed to slip aboard separated by heavy steel bulkheads fog as Foote walked aft toward the Knox bought a newspaper from Chu mucking in the Klondike gold and hide in the coal and said to be virtually unsinkable. dining saloon. Chow, the ship’s newsboy, and was fields for three long winters. Now bunkers below. Well into Lynn Canal, Islander In the brightly lit saloon, settling into an evening of poker. on this warm evening of 14 August Captain Hamilton worked up to 14-knots and Capt. the ship’s orchestra played Across from him sat F.G. Hinde- 1901, he was going back to Seattle Foote nervously Foote left First Officer ragtime as waiters cleared the Bowker, manager with $35,000 in gold dust and paced the Islander ’s Cyril Neroutsos dinner tables. The dance hall of the nuggets stuffed into his bags. bridge, glancing at girls climbed onto The Islander was a popular ship his gold pocket on the Alaska run and 110 watch. He didn’t passengers — as varied and colorful want to lose the as the Kondike itself — were ebb tide and already on board: Gruff miners, ordered the Advertisement for the Islander and other businessmen on their way to gangplank drawn Canadian Pacific steamers. 48 SEA CLASSICS/November 2018 seaclassicsnow.com 49.