Empty Islander

In 1901 Klondike River, in Canada's Yukon Territory, was the place to go for gold. As the summer neared its close the trail from the fields down through White Pass to the Alaskan port of Skagway was a jostling procession of prospectors. On Aug. 13 the Islander, 240-ft. pride of the Skagway-Victoria Line, steamed out of port with a 61-man crew, 108 passengers, a dozen stowaways, began threading its way through the narrow straits. At 2 a. m., when most of the passengers had reeled off to bed, the Islander hit something with a mighty impact, sank off Douglas Island in 365 ft. of water. Forty-two persons were lost.

What the Islander struck was not certain. There was no ice, no fog. No less uncertain was the amount of gold that went down with the ship. According to one survivor the purser handed out to frantic passengers all but two $10,000 bags which no one claimed. According to another, many a victim went to the bottom hugging $40,000 bags of nuggets and dust.

The people of the northwest coast did not forget the Islander, and in time the popular figure for the gold left in the wreck climbed to $3,000,000.

Few years ago a Seattle salvage company proposed to raise the wreck and recover its treasure, had little difficulty selling $500,000 of stock in the enterprise. It was to be no will-o'-the-wisp chase, but a sober, scientific business undertaking.

In June 1933 the company sent out two salvage boats in charge of its ace operations man, a spidery, sun-browned little spitfire named Frank Curtis. This looked to Frank Curtis like the hardest job of his life. Grappling lines slipped and snapped, power winches broke. In August the salvage crew was ready to quit. Spitfire Curtis jumped up & down, barked, screamed and swore until they went back to work. In October an anchor chain whacked Frank Curtis across the legs, almost cut them off. Two hours later, with two men holding him upright, he was back on deck directing operations.

Finally the barnacle-crusted hulk of the Islander came grudgingly to the surface, and the salvage boats nursed it toward Admiralty Island, 15 mi. from Juneau. Last week the wreck was beached. Frank Curtis and his men crawled inside, pried into every nook & cranny, sifted the cold slime and sludge foot by foot. Not an ounce of gold did they find.

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