Rusted Ghosts

Long, long ago, back in the 20th century (it seems strange to say that now, to me who spent most of my life in that century) when logs were logs, when the saws in the woods were manned by two lumberjacks each, perched on supports jammed high into the stump, where the 12-foot-long saw could reach across the width of the trunk, the felling of a tree was only the first part of an arduous undertaking. Somehow, those monsters had to be hauled out of the dense BC bush, loaded onto trains or trucks, and dumped in a handy harbour. From there, they could be boomed or loaded onto barges and towed to a mill, usually some distance away over treacherous waters.

Google map: Comox Harbour, Goose Spit, Royston.

One such handy dumping ground was Comox Harbour, a deep river mouth with a spit partway across the opening, creating a safe place to store log booms. A logging railway came down the coast to Royston, on the far side of the harbour.

Starting in 1911, steam locomotives hauled logs from logging camps throughout the Comox Valley to the Royston log dump. The logs were sorted into booms and towed to more protected waters on the inside of Goose Spit. From there, the steam tugs towed the log booms to Fraser Mills in New Westminster. (Royston Seaside Trail website)

The ocean here can be stormy, and the Royston log dump had no protection. In 1937, the logging company started to sink derelict ships to form a breakwater. It was the age of the steam engine, and the old sailing ships could not compete; they were among the first to be riddled with holes and left to rot on the tide flats.

The Riversdale, a steel-masted Cape Horn windjammer, launched 1894, stripped and used as a barge before she was finally sunk. The bowsprit is all that remains of the superstructure.

From the sign at the trail.

The first member of the Royston ghost fleet was the five-masted auxiliary lumber schooner Laurel Whalen. Built in 1917 by Cameron Genoa Mills Shipbuilders in Victoria, the Laurel Whalen had a brief spell as an ocean going cargo ship before being converted to a floating cannery in the 1920's. Eventually she outlived her usefulness and was brought to the breakwater site in the 1930's. (Forgotten British Columbia Facebook page)

The Melanope and the Orotava. The Melanope is the oldest of the sailing vessels, built in 1876.

A world traveller: Liverpool to Australia to Asia to Royston, hauling everything from coal to rice, later stripped down and used as a log barge.

Then came WWII.  When it was over, many of the old warships were scrapped. Several ended up in the Royston breakwater.

The Prince Rupert, a WWII frigate.

In her active days.

In all, there are 14 ships rusting away on the old breakwater: "... three windjammers, three frigates, two destroyers, three steam tugs, one (maybe two according to some accounts) harpoon boat, and two barques (a kind of “workhorse” of the 19th century sailing ships)." (atlasobscura)

Another view of the Melanope and the Orotava

320 feet long, four-masted. Captured from the Germans, WWII.

When I arrived, the tide was low, but not as low as it gets at other times. I could see fragments of other ships, barely above the surface. Some, though, even at the lowest of the low tides, are now so rusted and rotted that they have almost disappeared.

On the shore, the remains of an old rail heading out to sea. A slipway, maybe?

For more complete info, see the book The Ghost Ships of Royston, by Rick James.

Related: about the breakwater at Oyster Bay: Rust in Peace. 

Rust in peace

(continued from A bit of logging camp history.)

Simpson's Folly, they called it. Al Simpson, of the Iron River Logging Company, had built the causeway out into Georgia Strait, but the waves were too strong, and broke up his log booms. He added pieces of derelict ships to make a breakwater, starting with a 68 year old, three-masted clipper ship, the St. Paul, in 1942. The winter storms shifted them around, so he had them dynamited to the ground.

Remains of one of the Oyster Bay derelicts

Near the top of the breakwater, the old iron doesn't collect seaweed.

It wasn't enough. This is open coast, and the currents are strong.

In 1944, H.R. MacMillan bought the logging rights and camp. He expanded its operation, and brought in over one hundred worker's cabins. A cafe, the Blue Grouse, opened next door. And he began an ambitious program to protect the bay, adding, over time, a whole fleet of drowned ships.

The HCMS Matane, Royal Canadian Navy

... British Columbia's first Chief Forester. MacMillan reportedly gained considerable experience in world lumbering during World War I. With his colleague Whitford Julian VanDusen, another forester, MacMillan incorporated a company in 1919 to sell British Columbia lumber products to foreign markets. In 1924, they established a shipping company that would become one of the world's biggest charter companies. ( In response to competition, they began) ... to purchase mills and creat(e) the first truly integrated forestry company in British Columbia.
During World War II, MacMillan acquired numerous small mills and timber tenures on the south coast of British Columbia. (Wikipedia)

When World War II ended, many of the ships used in the war effort became redundant, and were sold off. In 1947, MacMillan bought and beached the Matane (almost new: built in 1943), the Levis, and the Charlottetown, from the Royal Canadian Navy.

Another view of the Matane. This was a large ship.

More ships followed:

• the WWI destroyer President Burns, 
• the Union Steamship steamer Lady Pam, 
• the Consolidated Whaling Company tender Gray (b. 1889), 
• the Island Tug and Barge Company’s chip barges Drumwall (aka. Puako) and 
• Betsey Ross (b. 1943), 
• the San Francisco car ferry Golden Bear, 
• the steam freighter Chatham, 
• the car ferry Border Queen, 
• two tugs (Cape Scott was one), 
• the 245-foot Muriel (built 1920), and 
• a large floating drydock.

The ships rested there, slowly rusting, until the mid-1950s, when rocks were brought in to replace them; the ships then were "removed". A 1956 report from the Campbell River Museum archives claims that "Removal of the hulks of old vessels has been underway for some years ... will be completed in 1956."

"Hat guy". Not much left of this ship.

Their footprints are still rusting peacefully today, in 2017.

Rust and barnacle remains.

As to how much they rusted and deteriorated, I put it down to the fact the tide goes out past them and exposes them entirely to air, twice a day, whereas sunken ships are entirely underwater forever and thus somewhat protected from oxidation (rusting.) (From Fransen CR; Graveyard of the Canadian Navy, Flickr.)

(Also see Ted Boggs collection, Campbell River Museum, for photos of logging camp and booming grounds, 1942 - 1945, and Helen Mitchell collection, for typical bunkhouses.)