Sinking of the SS Clallam - Legends, Falsehoods and Silences

Sinking of the SS CLallam  - Legends, Falsehoods and Silences

Peter Grant, Author and Historian

Peter is the author of seven books about Victoria and Vancouver Island. He is currently working on a book about the 650-ton passenger steamboat Clallam which foundered in a storm in the Strait of Juan de Fuca while passing between Port Townsend, USA and Victoria, Canada on January 8, 1904. Of the ninety or more people on the Clallam, more than fifty died. Late in the afternoon within sight of Victoria’s rocky shores a living nightmare unfolded. Before dark the occupants of three lifeboats were delivered to their deaths. The remainder, all men, mostly crew, kept the vessel afloat for another nine hours. The toll makes the Clallam disaster the worst in the maritime history of the Salish Sea. Peter will talk to us about his extensive research into the reports of the survivors and the testimony recovered from handwritten transcripts of the inquest.