Iñupiaq men in qayaqs, Noatak, Alaska, circa 1929. Edward S. Curtis Collection, Library of Congress Digital Collections.
Crossing the Chilkoot Pass, circa 1898. Courtesy Candy Waugaman and Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park.
The Gold Rush boomtown of Nome on the Seward Peninsula, 1900. Courtesy of U.S. Geological Survey Photographic Library.
by William Schneider
Group portrait at the first Tanana Chiefs Conference, 1915. Seated front, L to R: Chief Alexander of Tolovana, Chief Thomas of Nenana, Chief Evan of Koschakat, Chief Alexander William of Tanana. Standing at rear, L to R: Chief William of Tanana, Paul Williams of Tanana, and Chief Charlie of Minto. Albert Johnson Photograph Collection, University of Alaska Fairbanks.
One hundred years ago this month (July 5-6, 1915), Native leaders from the Tanana River gathered in Fairbanks to meet with government officials and express their concerns about the impingement of White prospectors and settlers on their hunting grounds. Present at that meeting were representatives from Tanana (or Ft. Gibbon), Crossjacket, Tolovana, Minto, Chena, and Salchaket. Government officials included Judge James Wickersham, Thomas Riggs of the Alaska Engineering Commission, C.W. Richie and H.J. Atwell of the United States Land Office, and the Reverend Guy Madara from the Episcopal Church. (A full list of participants can be found in the transcript of the meeting at the Alaska State Library, ASL-MS-0107-38-001.) This was not the first gathering of Native leaders to express concerns about the impacts caused by the newcomers (1898 Juneau School House Meeting and a 1913 or 14 meeting in Tanana). However, this meeting stands out for several important reasons.
The 1915 Tanana Chiefs meeting is the first public occasion for Interior Natives to discuss their issues in their own words with government officials. Before this meeting, others had spoken for them expressing their understanding of Native conditions and needs. Preceding this historic meeting and earlier in the summer, Judge Wickersham had met with Chief Charlie and Chief Alexander on the lower river and together they made the plan to hold the meeting in Fairbanks and listed some of the leaders to attend. Wickersham arranged the meeting to coincide with the laying of the cornerstone for the University and the Fourth of July celebration. The meeting was recorded by a stenographer; photographs were taken by a professional photographer; there was an article in the newspaper describing the proceedings, and Wickersham reported the proceedings to the Secretary of the Interior in Washington D.C. In these ways, Wickersham insured that this meeting and the concerns of the Native leaders would be heard and preserved for future reference.
The Indian leaders were eager to discuss possible solutions to the problem of protecting their land and way of life. One year earlier, President Wilson had signed the Alaska Railroad Act and the government officials warned that it would be hard to protect Native land rights with the expected development the railroad would bring to the Interior. Wickersham encouraged the leaders to consider the two legal options available to them: Native allotments or reservations. In eloquent terms, the leaders described how both were incompatible with their hunting and fishing life that called for unrestricted access to hunting, fishing, and trapping areas. There were other concerns. The Native leaders called for medical assistance, education, particularly in the form of industrial schools, and they asked to be informed about events affecting their lives and livelihood such as opportunities for wood cutting contracts.
In a very fundamental way, the Native leaders were asking for a relationship with the government and the means to attain rights, opportunities, and control of their affairs in the new realities they were now facing. In just fifteen years they had watched their world change dramatically with the coming of prospectors and the attendant development of the Tanana valley. Ironically, the Indian groups living on the Tanana had traded on the Yukon for many years before the gold rush but had maintained a homeland intact from White settlement. With gold discoveries in the Tanana Valley, development of Fairbanks as a supply center, establishment of the Valdez Trail, steamboat traffic on the Tanana River, and the telegraph line, life changed drastically. Where once the Indians had guided and rescued military explorers, now the Indians were considered unimportant to the development interests of the country. David Jarvis, the Customs Agent at Eagle noted the change to Senator Dillingham’s Senate committee investigating conditions in Alaska in 1903. He sadly noted that after the gold rush, Alaska had become “a white man’s country.”
This is what makes the 1915 meeting so important. Wickersham and the Native leaders who gathered in Fairbanks began a public dialogue about the government’s responsibilities to Native people, a responsibility that went back to the Treaty of Cession in 1867 and has evolved to the present. The chiefs’ meeting reminded the government and the public of that responsibility and the difficulties of addressing Native concerns. Resolution of land claims would take years to resolve but anyone looking back at this meeting can see that it offers all of us a way to assess what has been gained in many areas over the years and that it represents a beginning point in efforts to address Native needs in a multi-cultural world. As Native leaders today attest, there have been gains but there is much work to be done.
Alaska students Clare Howard, Camille Griffith, and Leo McNicholas were awarded the Junior Division Native American History Award at the annual National History Day (NHD) competition, held last month at the University of Maryland.
Clare, Camille, and Leo, all from Anchorage, won for their documentary entitled Elizabeth Peratovich’s Leadership to Change Native Rights and Her Lasting Legacy in Alaska.
Two entries from Alaska also received the Outstanding Entry Award, which recognizes quality work, well-rounded research, and great student achievement. Kasey Casort of Fairbanks received the award for her website entitled Bayard Rustin: Leading the Fight for Civil Rights. Bailey Buenarte and Sam Michelle Tuazon of Anchorage received the award for their group website on Theodore Roosevelt.
“We are incredibly proud of our students for all of their time and effort they put in to their projects,” said state coordinator Valerie Gomez. “These students have not only deepened their understanding of their chosen topics, but also been energized by learning. This program truly brings history to life for students.”
Twenty-three middle and high school student from around the state represented Alaska at the national competition. Each student developed entries based on the theme Leadership & Legacy in History.
National History Day is a year-long academic organization for elementary and secondary school students that focuses on the teaching and learning of history. More than a half million students across the nation participate each year.
For more information, please contact Valerie Gomez at the National Park Service (907-644-3467; valerie_gomez (at) nps.gov.
Cod fishing is a rather rough life.
—Anacortes American, 1911[1]
For any disobedience of lawful commands from said Master or the Officers of the Vessel, whoever they may be, it is agreed to forfeit to the Owner One Thousand Codfish for each offense and for a false report of catch of codfish to the Master, the Fisherman agrees to forfeit the catch so falsely reported.
—Alaska Codfish Company, 1912[2]
BY: James Mackovjak
Fishing for codfish in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska was hard, uncomfortable, and very dangerous work that was done far from friends and family and with little certainty of remuneration. The journeys to and from Alaska took three to five weeks, depending on the destination, and once a vessel arrived on the fishing grounds—where it would spend several months—severe weather could preclude fishing for weeks on end.
The wreck of the cod fishing schooner JOHN F. MILLER, just off Cape Pankov on Unimak Island with the SS DORA in the background. Photograph by John E. Thwaites, ca. 1908.
In its early days, however, the fishery was lucrative. Many of the fishermen employed in it were veterans of the Atlantic cod fishery and had sailed to California from New England on fishing schooners purchased for use in the Pacific cod fishery. These trained fishermen, in the words of the U.S. Fish Commission’s Captain J.W. Collins, “carried to the Pacific a skill gained by years of experience in the Atlantic fisheries, and hardihood and daring unexcelled.”[3]
The Pacific codfish industry declined during the 1880s, and in later years became an occupation that didn’t attract a lot of first-class talent. The Bureau of Fisheries 1906 report on Alaska fisheries characterized the crew of a typical codfish schooner as having “a few good fishermen,” but being mostly made up of “riff-raff picked up along the water fronts of the Pacific Coast cities.”[4]
The 1905-1906 voyage to the Shumagin Islands of the San Francisco-based Pacific States Trading Company’s 107-foot, two-masted schooner GLEN is an example of how difficult, dangerous, and unprofitable working on a cod fishing schooner could be. The converted lumber carrier departed San Francisco in September 1905 and, once on the fishing grounds, experienced almost continuously stormy weather that precluded launching her dories. To make matters worse, during a gale on December 20 the GLEN dragged her anchors and went ashore. Fortunately, no one was injured and the vessel was refloated the following day. However, less than two weeks later, on New Year’s Day, the GLEN again dragged her anchors and this time went hard ashore. Once more, no one was injured, but it was a week before the GLEN, with part of her keel missing as well as other damage, was refloated. Her captain decided to return to San Francisco for repairs. But the hardships were not yet over: during her stormy, thirty-three-day return voyage, the GLEN’s main gaff and mainsail were blown away. She arrived in San Francisco on March 8, 1906, leaking badly and without enough fish to even pay the cost of outfitting the voyage, let alone the crew. However, as a token payment for a half-year of hardship and danger, each crew member received one dollar.[5]
The GLEN was repaired and put back into service, but for her the following year would prove to be fatal. On September 30, 1907, she was wrecked in East Anchor Cove (known also as Bear Harbor), on Unimak Island. One crew member drowned. The GLEN’s cargo of 38,000 codfish, however, was reported to have been intact. The 107-foot, three-masted JOHN F. MILLER (another company schooner) was sent to salvage as much of the cargo as possible. On January 8, 1908, while the JOHN F. MILLER was at anchor in the cove, a storm came up suddenly, and before the vessel could get underway, she was coated with ice. Unmanageable, the JOHN F. MILLER was driven onto a rocky beach, where she broke in half. Of her 23-man crew, all eight who were on the vessel’s forward section drowned, as did two of the 15 men in the aft section.
Stranded on the beach in the winter cold, most of the survivors soon suffered from frostbite. For sustenance they had only raw fish (from the GLEN) and a paste made from flour and water. (A few bags of flour were the only provisions that the survivors had been able to salvage from the JOHN F. MILLER’s wreckage.) In this dire situation, two courageous crew members, both fishermen, put to sea in a dory and with great hardship managed over six days to row to Sand Point, about 100 miles distant, to summon help. A cod fishing schooner, likely the MARTHA, was soon dispatched to rescue the eleven remaining men, all of whom survived. News of the tragedy was not received in San Francisco until early March, when the cod fishing schooner CZARINA arrived from the north.
The loss of the JOHN F. MILLER marked the end of Pacific States Trading Company. The company sold its inventory of codfish to the Union Fish Company, which also leased Pacific States Trading Company’s vessels, two shore stations, and California drying facilities.[6]
Jim Mackovjak, hunkered down in Gustavus, is preparing a history of the cod fish industry which he hopes to complete this year.
Notes:
[1] “Anacortes’ Codfish Industry is One of Great Importance,” Anacortes American, October 12, 1911.
[2] Fishing Shipping Papers, Alaska Codfish Company schooners Mary and Ida, 1900, and W.H. Dimond, 1912-1913, San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park archive.
[3] J.W. Collins, Report on the Fisheries of the Pacific Coast of the United States, in Report of the United States Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries for 1892 (Washington: GPO, 1892), 101.
[4] John N. Cobb, Fisheries of Alaska in 1906, Bureau of Fisheries Doc. No. 618 (Washington: GPO, 1907), 47.
[5] “Schooner Glen in Hard Luck,” San Francisco Call, March 9, 1906.
[6] Fisheries of Alaska in 1907, Bureau of Fisheries Doc. No. 632 (Washington: GPO, 1908), 48; Fisheries of Alaska in 1908, Bureau of Fisheries Doc. No. 645 (Washington: GPO, 1909), 60-61; “Codfish Market,” Pacific Fisherman (December 1907): 21-22; “Codfish Market,” Pacific Fisherman (April 1908): 23-24; “Schooner Brings News of Contrary Gus Whom the Dead Saved from Freezing,” San Francisco Call, May 16, 1908; “Survivors are in Dire Distress,” San Francisco Call, March 9, 1908; “Brings Report of Rescue,” San Francisco Call, March 9, 1908; “Ten Perish, Twenty-five Stranded in Far North,” Los Angeles Herald, March 1908.
by Tobin Shorey
In 1799, shipwrights in Dighton, Massachusetts, completed construction of the Juno. According to ship registries in Rhode Island, where the Juno was registered in 1800, she measured 82.5 feet long, 24 feet wide, and 12 feet deep, and could displace up to 295 tons fully loaded. [1] A three-masted ship with two decks, the Juno was a fast sailing merchant vessel that had a sharp keel lined with copper. Records say that she was fitted with a female figurehead on the bow, likely a representation of her Roman namesake. Her second captain, John DeWolf, considered her a “crack ship” for her time, outfitted to embrace “all that was needed for both comfort and convenience.” [2] Like many merchant vessels of the day, she was armed to ward off pirates and privateers. This gave her what DeWolf called a “formidable and warlike appearance.”
The JUNO (three-masted ship closest to the trees on the left) in sketch of Sitka harbor by Georg Langsdorff. Click on image to see larger version. (ASL Alaska Purchase Centennial Collection, ASL-PCA-20)
Commerce first brought the Juno to the North Pacific in 1802. [3] She was one of many merchant vessels that were constructed for the international commerce that ran through American ports. Such ships were the financial backbone of Thomas Jefferson’s expanding Empire of Liberty. [4] By the end of the 18th century, wealthy New England families had commercial contacts that spanned the globe. After the publication of Captain James Cook’s memoirs from his third expedition, these merchants discovered the burgeoning sea otter trade with China. The Juno was dispatched by the DeWolf family to participate in this trade a decade after it was established. Her captain was to trade household goods or firearms to the indigenous populations between the mouth of the Columbia River and Sitka (primarily the Tsiamshian, Haida, and Tlingit peoples) in exchange for sea otter pelts. These pelts were, in turn, used to purchase Chinese goods for American consumption.
The Juno became one of the primary means for the Russians to exert control over their disparate Pacific Northwest holdings until she sank in 1811. She was used as a vessel of science, exploring lands north of San Francisco for future settlement (Fort Ross in 1812). Natural historian Georg von Langsdorff’s voyage aboard the Juno enabled him to compare and contrast natural history and indigenous populations in Spanish America and Russian America. She provided protection to the newly established colony of Sitka, and defended fur hunting parties led by employees of the Russian American Company. She was also a ship of war and diplomacy during her short stint of service for the RAC.
The Juno became a Russian vessel during her second voyage to the Pacific Northwest coast. On August 13, 1804, she weighed anchor, sailing from Rhode Island. John DeWolf, the 24 year-old nephew of the ship’s owners, was named captain and supercargo with a crew of twenty-six men and boys. DeWolf arrived on the coastline of the Pacific Northwest in April of 1805, trading with local populations along the coast before ultimately selling the Juno to the Russians, who recently conquered Sitka Island and established the outpost of New Archangel. DeWolf agreed to sell her to the RAC for $68,000, payable with bills of exchange on the Directors of Russian American Company for $54,638 in St. Petersburg, 572 sea otter skins valued at $13,062, $300 in cash, and a small Russian vessel so that DeWolf’s crew could sail to China to sell the pelts they had amassed.
On October 5, 1805, the American flag was transferred to the small Russian vessel Ermak, and the Juno became the Yunona. The Ermak set sail on October 27 for Hawaii before heading on to Canton with one of DeWolf’s officers, George Stetson, in command. [5] Confirming the low quality of ships in the RAC’s service, one Russian official wrote, “May God help them, so that they will not have to pay too high a price for their adventurousness.” [6] DeWolf agreed to stay at the settlement until spring 1806. From there, he would head to St. Petersburg overland to complete the sale of the Juno before heading back to America via the Baltic and Atlantic trade routes.
In February 1806, Count Nikolai Petrovich Rezanov, who was in the colonies to inspect them on behalf of the tsar and the RAC, had the Juno prepped to travel to the small Spanish outpost of San Francisco. He hoped to open permanent trade for grain and supplies for the Russian colonies. Rezanov was ultimately unsuccessful, but the trip provided some supplies, opportunities for exploring and natural historical investigations of the area. [7] The voyage is perhaps most popularly known because of Rezanov’s sudden betrothal to the Spanish commandant’s daughter, Donna Concepcion de Arguello. Their tragic love tale has been retold by American and Russian poets, novelists, and in the Russian rock opera Yunona i Avos. [8]
Shortly after the Juno’s return to Sitka, she was made ready for another of Rezanov’s pet projects: a punitive expedition against the Japanese. Rezanov was initially sent around the world from St. Petersburg in the hopes of opening relations with Japan. His mission failed after languishing in Nagasaki for six months. But Rezanov, appointed as a chamberlain to the Court of Alexander I before his departure from Russia, was determined to force the Japanese to open trade with Russia’s colonies, by force if necessary. He planned to use the Juno and the Avos, a smaller vessel recently finished at Sitka, to raid Japanese colonies that were located in the Kurile Islands and on Sakhalin Island; both of which were claimed by the Russians based upon fur hunting expeditions sent there in the 18th century.
In September 1807, after the Juno was provisioned for the expedition, Rezanov gave the ship’s captain a confusing order to return to Russian America but stop at Sakhalin first if possible. Lieutenant Nikolai Aleksandrovich Khvostov decided to follow through with the original plan since Rezanov had set out for St. Petersburg before the orders could be clarified. Khvostov sailed for Aniva Bay in October, 1807. The Juno raided several Japanese villages on southern Sakhalin Island. [9] During these operations, Khvostov seized over 19 tons of rice, and looted tobacco, fishing nets, and various household goods. He also nailed a copper plate onto the torii of a Japanese temple, demanding that Japan open trade or face more raids. [10] A subsequent series of raids in the spring of 1808 resulted in the sacking of Japanese settlements in the Kurile Island chain. [11]
The RAC distanced itself from the attacks, passing responsibility onto Rezanov, acting in his public capacity as court chamberlain rather than his private role as plenipotentiary and major shareholder of the RAC. The Russian government similarly distanced itself from the actions by blaming the RAC. In a dispatch to the Japanese government, Russian officials claimed that the attacks were instigated by company officials, whose employees were often “vagabonds and adventurers” that drank excessively, and treated native populations poorly. [12] The Japanese responded by quickly refortifying positions in the Kuriles and on Sakhalin. Itorup was garrisoned by 2,500 Japanese soldiers by 1808. Japanese sources also record large troop movements on Hokkaido and Honshu in the aftermath of the attacks. [13] Diplomatically, the fallout from the attacks was felt throughout the nineteenth century, as Japanese officials continued to blame poor relations upon the Juno raids. [14]
After returning to Russian America in 1808, the Juno spent the next three years protecting RAC hunting parties and transporting goods to and from the Russian mainland. In May 1810, an American captain spotted the Juno at Clarence Strait, approximately 110 miles southeast of Sitka. She was heading towards the California coastline with an American ship on a joint hunting expedition. But the Juno did not complete this voyage. Hunters in the expedition came under attack by the Haida, south of Sitka. After eight of them were killed, the Juno retreated to Sitka. Russian personnel blamed renegade Yankee ship captains for instigating the attacks, arguing that many of them feared Russian influence expanding south of Sitka.
In July 1811, Russian colonists at Sitka loaded the Juno with a cargo of sea otter furs and goods recently obtained from Canton via American intermediaries. The cargo was valued at over 200,000 Russian rubles, and destined for Petropavlovsk. Such trips normally took two months, but the Juno encountered stormy conditions and contrary winds. On November 15, 1811, less than twenty-five miles from Petropavlovsk, a storm tore away the steering gear and chains, leaving the Juno helplessly adrift. After a failed attempt to anchor in a nearby bay, strong currents and winds dragged the ship onto a reef. The surf then pounded the vessel until it was slammed into the rocky shore, each wave carrying away more of the timbers, cargo, and crewmembers until all but three were lost. [15] The survivors reported to Petropavlovsk what occurred. A partial report from the captain was found among the wreckage and bodies. It read,
With the vessel entrusted to me, I have arrived from the port of Novo-Archangelsk [Sitka] in the most wretched condition. I have been sailing for three months from the Northwest coast of America and struggling against unending storms. Now already in sight of the shore here for 19 days, I have only 3 sailors and they exhausted, and 5 young apprentices whom I brought with me for training; of them, the two oldest perform sailors’ duties in addition to their own. The other three take the wheel, bail out water (which comes aboard during strong winds at the rate of 5 inches every hour) throw out the lead sounder and keep the ship’s journal. Sailing a three masted ship with these 8 people is a difficult undertaking, the rest of my crew… [16]
With that, according to an RAC official, the report ends.
In September 1812, the RAC sent Tsar Alexander a report detailing the loss of the Juno. The directors were nevertheless upbeat about the future prospects of goods arriving from the colonies. During the War of 1812, Russians were able to purchase additional American vessels that were stranded in the Pacific due to the British blockade of American ports. Replacing the rickety vessels built in the colonies, these ships and the Neva from St. Petersburg would provide a more secure military and commercial footing for the Company’s exploitation of resources along the Alaska coastline for years to come. But without the Juno, it is unlikely that the colonies would have survived long enough for this to occur.
Notes:
[1] Ships Registers and Enrollments of Newport, Rhode Island 1790-1939 (Providence: The National Archives Project, 1938-1941), 355.
[2] John DeWolf, A Voyage to the North Pacific and a Journey through Siberia More than Half a Century Ago (Cambridge: Welch Bigelow, and Company, 1861), 2.
[3] Some sources incorrectly attribute captaincy and ownership of the vessel during this period. For a full analysis, please see Tobin Shorey, “Navigating the ‘Drunken Republic’: The Juno and the Russian American Frontier, 1799-1811” (Dissertation, University of Florida, 2014).
[4] Jefferson’s phrase “Empire of Liberty” has been used to describe American political economy during the Jeffersonian period as well as Jefferson’s expansionist tendencies and his seemingly incongruent political philosophy on individual liberty and limitation of state prerogatives. As president, Jefferson sought to eliminate taxes where possible, relying instead on import duties to fund the American government. See Robert W. Tucker and David C Hendrickson, Empire of Liberty: The Statecraft of Thomas Jefferson (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 35.
[5] Rezanov reported to the company that Ermak made it to Hawaii under American ownership with no problems and continued to Canton. See “A Confidential report from Nikolai P. Rezanov to Minister of Commerce Nikolai P. Rumiantsev, Concerning Trade and Other Relations between Russian America, Spanish California and Hawaii” in The Russian American Colonies: To Siberia and Russian America 1798-1867, Volume 3 (Oregon: Oregon Historical Society Press), 147.
[6] “Letter, Rezanov to the Directors of the Russian-American Company, from New Archangel, November 6, 1805” in Petr Tikhmenev, A History of the Russian American Company Vol II (Ontario: The Limestone Press, 1979), 158.
[7] See Georg Heinrich von Langsdorf, Voyages and Travels in Various Parts of the World, During the Years 1803-1807 (London: B. Clarke Printer, 1814) and Richard A. Pierce, Rezanov Reconnoiters California, 1806 (San Francisco: Book Club of California, 1972).
[8] First performed in 1982 in Moscow’s Lenkom theatre, the opera is still successful in Russia today.
[9] Henry Emerson Wildes, “Russia’s Attempts to Open Japan.” Russian Review 5 no. 1 (Autumn 1945): 76.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Mikhail Vysokov, A Brief History of Sakhalin and the Kurils (Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk: Sakhalin Book Publishing House, 1996), 38.
[12] Wildes, “Russia’s Attempt to Open Japan,” 76.
[13] W.G. Aston “The Russian Descents upon Saghalien and Itorup” Transactions Asiatic Society of Japan, Vol. 1 (1873): 88.
[14] Wildes, “Russia’s Attempt to Open Japan,” 70-79. Wildes noted that “[a]s late as 1882, the chief of Japan’s Geographical Society, Admiral Viscount Buyo Enomoto, wrote a series of articles tracing the origin of Russo-Japanese hostility to their activities.”
[15] K.T. Khlebnikov, Baranov: Chief Manager of the Russian Colonies in America. (Kingston, Ontario: The Limestone Press, 1973), 80-81. Originally published as Zhizneopisanie Aleksandra Andreevicha Baranova, glavnago pravitelia rossiiskikh kolonii v Amerike, 1835.
[16] Khlebnikov, Baranov: Chief Manager, 80-81.
AHS congratulates Damon Stuebner, longtime society member and staff at Alaska Historical Collections in Juneau, on his recent award for chronicling the history of the Coast Guard Cutter STORIS.
Damon Stuebner and his wife Rebecca Tyson Smith (documentary’s co-producer) with 1957 STORIS crewmates Clair Upton, Chuck Schmitzer, and Dick Juge at a special screening of his documentary.
Members of the All Coast Guard Ships Veterans’ Association and the Alaska/Bering Sea Patrol Veterans’ Associations honored Stuebner with an Award of Recognition for his work in the preservation of Coast Guard history. A bronze Coast Guard medallion was presented to Stuebner after a special screening of his documentary, “STORIS: The Galloping Ghost of the Alaskan Coast” on May 5, 2015, during the associations’ joint biennial reunion in Reno, NV.
Stuebner’s independently produced, 100-minute documentary chronicled the nearly 65-year history of the vessel.
“This film captures the true essence of Coast Guard missions,” one veteran commented. “We used to say, ‘You have to go out, but you don’t have to come back’. You have captured what it means to be a Coastie.”
Three of the former STORIS crewmembers in attendance served aboard the ship during the 1957 Northwest Passage expedition, a mission to find and chart a deep-water route through the Arctic. During that mission, STORIS became the first U.S. ship to sail the Northwest Passage and the first U.S. ship to circumnavigate the North American continent.
Commissioned in 1942, STORIS was the only ship built of her design and class. STORIS spent 59 years patrolling Alaska waters where she conducted the first major fisheries law enforcement operations in the Bering Sea. In 1972, STORIS earned the title “The Galloping Ghost of the Alaskan Coast” for the seizure of two Russian factory trawlers illegally fishing off St. Mathew Island.
STORIS also provided relief after the 1964 earthquake, provided icebreaking for the construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, and was one of three command ships for the clean-up of the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
In 1991, STORIS became the oldest commissioned cutter in the U.S. Coast Guard earning it the new title, “Queen of the Fleet”; in 1992, she became the military ship with the longest tour of duty in Alaska, surpassing the Cutter BEAR’s 44 years of service.
STORIS was decommissioned in 2007, in Kodiak, Alaska.
The bronze Coast Guard medallion presented to Damon Stuebner by members of the All Coast Guard Ships Veterans’ Association and the Alaska/Bering Sea Patrol Veterans’ Association.
After failed attempts by members of both veterans’ associations and several historical societies to preserve the ship as a museum, STORIS was scrapped in 2013 in Mexico. Another veteran said, “It is a real shame she was not saved for her historical value.”
The inscription on the back of the medallion reads, “Damon Stuebner, thanks for keeping the history of the CGC STORIS alive, 2015.”
The documentary “STORIS: The Galloping Ghost of the Alaskan Coast” is currently under review for numerous film festivals.
