Pender Island Art Society
Pender Island Art Society

Gold from Alaska

"Gold from Alaska"

Artist: Malcolm Armstrong

Medium: Oil

Size: 16" x 20"

Price: $1000

To inquire of the artist directly about this work please email: malcolmarmstrong@shaw.ca or call: 250-629-6571

GOLD FROM ALASKA

S.S. HUMBOLDT was launched in 1897 as a steam schooner for the lumber trade. That was the year that the first shipment of gold left the newly discovered gold fields of the Klondike. Humboldt was immediately converted to a passenger ship and entered the trade between Seattle and Alaska. She is depicted here on one of more than five hundred voyages that she made to Alaska during and after the gold rush.

The only mishap in her life occurred in September 1908 when she almost became a permanent fixture on the coast of South Pender Island; she was refloated with little damage.

Captain Elijah G. Baughman was master of the HUMBOLDT

from 1900 until they both retired.

After being laid up at anchor for two years with other unwanted ships,

S.S. HUMBOLDT mysteriously left her anchorage and headed for sea. She was pursued and boarded by a US Coast Guard cutter and was found to be deserted. That was the night of August 8th 1935, the night that Captain Baughman died.