Episode 21: Adrift

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I have a confession to make.

Keep in mind, I write about frightening things things for a living.

I haven't read a horror novel yet that's managed to freak me out, and yet, I'm deathly afraid of open water.

There, I said it.

I hate being on boats.

I'm not even sure why, to be honest.

I just am.

Perhaps it's the idea that thousands of feet of cold darkness wait right beneath my feet.

Maybe it's the mystery of it all, of what creatures, both known and unknown, might be waiting for me just beyond the reach of what little sunlight passes through the surface of the waves.

Now, I live near the coast, and I've been on boats before, so my fear comes from experience.

But it's not the cold, deep darkness beneath the ship that worries me the most.

No, what really makes my skin crawl is the thought that, at any moment, the ship could sink.

Maybe we can blame movies like Titanic or the Poseidon Adventure for showing us how horrific a shipwreck can be.

But there are far more true stories of tragedy at sea than there are fictional ones.

And it's in these real-life experiences, these maritime disasters that dot the map of history like an ocean full of macabre buoys, that we come face to face with the real dangers that await us in open water.

The ocean takes much from us.

But in rare moments, scattered across across the pages of history, we've heard darker stories.

Stories of ships that come back, of sailors returned from the dead, and of loved ones who never stop searching for land.

Sometimes our greatest fears refuse to stay beneath the waves.

I'm Mary Mankey, and this is Lore.

Shipwrecks aren't a modern notion.

As far back as we can go, there are records of ships lost at sea.

In the Odyssey by Homer, one of the oldest and most widely read stories ever told, we meet Odysseus shortly before he experiences a shipwreck at the hands of Poseidon, god of the sea.

Even farther back in time, we have the Egyptian tale of the shipwrecked sailor, dating to at least the 18th century BC.

BC.

The truth is though, for as long as humans have been building seafaring vessels and setting sail into unknown waters, there have been shipwrecks.

It's a universal motif in the literatures of the world, and that's most likely because of the raw basic risk that a shipwreck poses to the sailors on the ships.

But it's not just the personal risk.

Shipwrecks have been a threat to culture itself for thousands of years.

The loss of a sailing vessel could mean the end to an expedition to discover a new territory, or turn the tide of a naval battle.

Imagine the results if Admiral Nelson had failed in his mission off the coast of Spain in 1805, or how differently Russia's history might have played out had Tsar Nicholas II's fleet actually defeated the Japanese in the Battle of Tsushima.

The advancement of cultures has hinged for thousands of years, in part, on whether or not their ships could return to ports safely.

But in those instances where ancient cultures have faded into the background of history, it is often through their shipwrecks that we get information about who they were.

Just last year, an ancient Phoenician shipwreck was discovered in the Mediterranean Sea near the island of Malta.

It's thought to be at least 2,700 years old and contains some of the oldest Phoenician artifacts ever uncovered.

For archaeologists and historians who study these ancient people, the shipwreck has offered new information and ideas.

The ocean takes much from us, and upon occasion, it also gives back.

Sometimes, though, what it gives us is something less inspiring.

Sometimes, it literally gives us back our dead.

One such example comes from 1775.

The legend speaks of a whaling vessel discovered off the western coast of Greenland in October of that year.

Now, this is a story with tricky provenance, so the details will vary depending on where you read about it.

it.

The ship's name might have been the Octavius, or possibly the Gloriana, and from what I can tell, the earliest telling of this tale can be traced back to a newspaper article in 1828.

The story tells of how one Captain Warren discovered the whaler drifting through a narrow passage in the ice off the coast of Greenland.

After hailing the vessel and receiving no reply, their own ship was brought near and the crew boarded the mysterious vessel.

Inside, though, they discovered a horrible sight.

Throughout the ship, the entire crew was frozen to death where they sat.

When they explored further and found the captain's quarter, the scene inside was even more eerie.

There in the cabin were more bodies.

A frozen woman holding a dead infant in her arms.

A sailor holding a tinderbox as if trying to manufacture some source of warmth.

And there, at the desk, sat the ship's captain.

One account tells of how his face and eyes were covered in a green, wet mold.

In one hand, the man held a fountain pen, and the ship's logbook was open in front of him.

Captain Warren leaned over and read the final entry, dated November 11, 1762, 13 years prior to the ship's discovery.

We have been enclosed in the ice 70 days, it said.

The fire went out yesterday, and our master has been trying ever since to kindle it again, but without success.

His wife died this morning.

There is no relief.

Captain Warren and his crew were so frightened by the encounter that they grabbed the ship's log and retreated as fast as they could back to their own ship.

The Octavius, if indeed that was the ship's name, was never seen again.

The mid-1800s saw the rise of the steel industry in America.

It was the beginning of an empire that would rule the economy for over a century.

And like all empires, there were capitals.

St.

Louis, Baltimore, Buffalo, Philadelphia.

All of these cities played host to some of the largest steel works in the country.

And for those that were close to the ocean, this created the opportunity for the perfect partnership, the shipyard.

Steel could be manufactured and delivered locally, and then used to construct the ocean-going steamers that were the lifeblood of late 19th century life.

The flood of immigration through Ellis Island, for example, wouldn't have been possible without these steamers.

My own family made that journey.

One such steamer to roll out of Philadelphia in 1885 was the SS Valencia.

She was 252 feet long and weighed in at nearly 1,600 tons.

The Valencia was built before complex bulkheads and hull compartments, and she wasn't the fastest ship on the water, but she was dependable.

She spent the first decade and a half running passengers between New York City and Caracas, Venezuela.

In 1897, while in the waters near Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the Valencia was attacked by a Spanish cruiser.

The next year, she was sold and moved to the West Coast, where she served in the Spanish-American War as a troop ship between the U.S.

and the Philippines.

After the war, the Valencia was sold to a company that used the ship to sail between California and Alaska.

But in 1906, she filled in for another ship that was under repair, and her new route became San Francisco to Seattle.

They gave the ship a checkup in January of that year, and everything checked out good.

For a 24-year-old vessel, the Valencia was in perfect working order.

She set sail on the 20th of January 1906, leaving sunny California and heading north.

The ship was crewed by nine officers, 56 crew members, and played host to over 100 passengers.

Somewhere near Cape Mendocino off the coast of Northern California, though, the weather turned sour, visibility dropped, and the winds kicked up.

When you're on a ship at night, even a slow one, losing the ability to see is a very bad thing.

Typically, without visual navigation, a captain might fall back on the celestial method, using the stars in the same way sailors did centuries ago.

But even that option was off the table for Captain Oscar Johnson, and so he used the only tool he had left, Dead Reckoning.

The name alone alone should hint at the efficacy of the method.

Using last known navigational points as a reference, Captain Johnson essentially guessed at the Valencia's current location.

But guessing can be deadly, and so instead of pointing the ship at the Strait of Juan de Fuca between Vancouver Island and Washington State, he unknowingly aimed it at the island itself.

Blinded by the weather and faulty guesswork, the Valencia struck a reef just 50 feet feet from the shore near Pachena Point on the southwest side of Vancouver Island.

They say the sound of the metal ripping apart on the rocks sounded like the screams of dozens of people.

It came without warning, and the crew did what they could to react by immediately reversing the engines and backing off the rocks.

Damage control reported the hull had been torn wide open.

Water was pouring in at a rapid pace, and there was no hope of repairing the ship.

It lacked lacked the hull compartments that later ships would include for just such occasions, and the captain knew that all hope was lost.

So he reversed the engines again and drove the ship back onto the rocks.

He wasn't trying to destroy the Valencia completely, but to ground her, hoping that would keep her from sinking as rapidly as she might at sea.

That's when all hell broke loose.

Before Captain Johnson could organize an evacuation, six of the seven lifeboats were lowered over the side.

Three of those flipped over on the way down, dumping out the people inside.

Two more capsized after hitting the water, and the sixth boat simply vanished.

In the end, only one boat made it safely away.

Frank Lenn was one of the few survivors of the shipwreck.

He later described the scene in all its horrific detail.

Screams of women and children mingled in an awful chorus with the shrieking of the wind, the dash of the rain, and the roar of the breakers.

As the passengers rushed on deck, they were carried away in bunches by the huge waves that seemed as high as the ship's mastheads.

The ship began to break up almost at once, and the women and children were lashed to the rigging above the reach of the sea.

It was a pitiful sight to see frail women wearing only night dresses, bare feet on the freezing rat lines, trying to shield children in their arms from the icy wind and rain.

About that same time, the last lifeboat made it safely away under the control of the ship's boatswain.

Officer Timothy McCarthy.

According to him, the last thing he saw after leaving the ship was, and I quote, the brave faces looking at us over the broken rail of a wreck and of the echo of a great hymn sung by the women through the fog and mist and flying spray.

The situation was desperate.

Attempts were made by the ship's remaining crew to fire a rescue line from the Lyle gun into the trees at the top of the nearby cliff.

If someone could simply reach the line and anchor it, the rest of the passengers would be saved.

The first line they fired became tangled and snapped clean, but the second successfully reached the cliff above.

A small group of men even managed to make it to shore.

There were nine of them, led by a schoolteacher named Frank Bunker.

But when they reached the top of the cliff, they discovered the path forked to the left and the right.

Bunker picked the left.

Had he instead turned right, the men would have come across the second Lyle line within minutes and possibly saved all the remaining passengers.

Instead, he led the men along a telegraph line path for over two hours before finally managing to get a message out to authorities about the accident, making a desperate plea for help.

And help was sent, but even though the three separate ships that raced to the site of the wreck tried to offer assistance, The rough weather and choppy seas prevented them from getting close enough to do any good.

Even still, the sight of the ships nearby gave a false sense of hope to those remaining on the wreckage.

So, when the few survivors on shore offered help, they declined.

There were no more lifeboats, no more lifelines to throw, and no ships brave enough to get closer.

The women and children stranded on the ship clung to the rigging and rails against the cold Pacific waters.

But when a large wave washed the wounded ship off the rocks and into deep water, everyone was lost.

All told, 137 of the 165 lives aboard the ship were lost that cold early January morning.

If that area of the coastline had yet to earn its modern nickname of the graveyard of the Pacific, this was the moment that cemented it.

The wreck of the Valencia was clearly the result of a series of unfortunate accidents, but officials still went looking for someone to blame.

In the aftermath of the tragedy, the Canadian government took steps to ensure life-saving measures along the coast that could help with future shipwrecks.

A lighthouse was constructed near Pachena Point, and a coastal trail was laid out that would eventually become known as the West Coast Trail.

But the story of Valencia was far from over.

Keep in mind, there have been scores of shipwrecks, tragedies that span centuries in that very same region of water.

And like most areas with a concentrated number of tragic deaths, unusual activity has been reported by those who visit.

Just five months after the Valencia sank, a local fisherman reported an amazing discovery.

While exploring seaside caves on the southwestern coast of Vancouver Island, he described how he stumbled upon one of the lifeboats within the cave.

In the boat, he claimed, were eight human skeletons.

The cave was said to be blocked by a large rock, and the interior was at least 200 feet deep.

Experts found it hard to explain how the boat could have made it from the waters outside into the space within, but theories speculated that an unusually high tide could possibly have lifted the boat up and over.

A search party was sent out to investigate the rumor, but it was found that the boat was unrecoverable due to the depth of a cave and the rocks blocking the entrance.

In 1910, the Seattle Times ran a story with reports of unusual sightings in the area of the wreck.

According to a number of sailors, a ship resembling the Valencia had been witnessed off the coast.

The mystery ship could have been any local steamer, except for one small detail.

The ship was already floundering on the rocks, half submerged.

Clinging to the wreckage, they say, were human figures holding on against the wind and the waves.

Humans have had a love affair with the ocean for thousands of years.

Across those dark and mysterious waters lay all manner of possibility.

New lands, new riches, new cultures to meet and trade with.

Setting sail has always been something akin to the start of an adventure, whether that destination was the Northern Passage or just up the coast.

But an adventure at sea always comes with great risk.

We understand this in our core.

It makes us cautious.

It turns our stomachs.

It fills us with equal parts dread and hope.

Because there, on the waves of the ocean, everything can go according to plan, or it can all fail tragically.

Maybe this is why the ocean is so often used as a metaphor for the fleeting, temporary nature of life.

Time, like waves, eventually wear us all down.

Our lives can be washed away in an instant, no matter how strong or high we build them.

Time takes much from us, just like the ocean.

The waters off the coast of Vancouver Island are a perfect example of that cruelty and risk.

They can be harsh, even brutal, toward vessels that pass through them.

The cold winters and sharp rocks leave ships with little chance of survival.

And with over 70 shipwrecks to date, the graveyard of the Pacific certainly lives up to its reputation.

For years after the tragedy of 1906, fishermen and locals on the island told stories of a ghostly ship that patrolled the waters just off the coast.

They said it was crewed by skeletons of the Valencia sailors who lost their lives there.

It would float into view and then disappear like a spirit before anyone could reach it.

In 1933, in the waters just north of the 27-year-old wreck of the Valencia, a shape floated out of the fog.

When a local approached it, the shape became recognizable.

It was a lifeboat.

It looked as if it had just been launched moments before.

And yet, there, on the side of the boat, were pale letters that spelled out a single word:

Valencia.

This episode of Lore was researched, written, and produced by me, Aaron Mankey.

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Lore is much more than a podcast.

There's a book series in bookstores around the country and online, and the second season of the Amazon Prime television show was recently released.

Check them both out if you want more lore in your life.

I also make two other podcasts, Aaron Mankey's Cabinet of Curiosities and Unobscured, and I think you'd enjoy both.

Each one explores other areas of our dark history, ranging from bite-sized episodes to season-long dives into a single topic.

You can learn about both of those shows and everything else going on all over in one central place: theworldoflore.com/slash now.

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