I Saw Three Ships

The sea connects us all.

A few weeks ago I headed out to Hawaii to explore the connections between Puget Sound and those islands. It is quite easy to find ships that have touched the shores of both. Today I am writing about three vessels from three very different eras and with three different propulsion systems. Each is currently home-berthed at Oahu and each has associations with our own neck of the water.

Falls of Clyde: Relic of the Age of Sail

The Falls of Clyde is a venerable sailing ship, one of the last of the iron-hulled tall ships that carried cargo around the world from the 19th through the 20th centuries. Like the three-masted ship Balclutha, the pride of San Francico's Hyde Street Pier, she was launched from Glasgow, Scotland. A four-masted, full rigged ship, the Falls of Clyde was an impressive sight in her day. Today she languishes in Honolulu Harbor, awaiting a nebulous fate.

Painting by Robert Carter, Image courtesy of Save Falls of Clyde - International.

Falls of Clyde was launched in Scotland in 1878, a decade before Balclutha. Following decades of service in the cargo trades, and another career as a petroleum depot in Ketchikan, Alaska, Falls of Clyde wound up as a mastless hulk in Lake Washington waiting for a new owner. There was talk of using the ship as a breakwater in British Columbia, the fate of a number of sailing ships, including the St. Paul and Forest Friend. At last a home was found for her in Honolulu, one of her many ports of call in her heyday. Late in 1963 the old ship was towed out through the Lake Washington Ship Canal and out to sea. The Navy tug Moctoba took her all the way to Oahu. She arrived in Honolulu on November 17 to a shower of flowers from a helicopter.

The Falls of Clyde is towed through the large locks at Ballard in 1963 on her way to a new berth as a museum ship in Hawaii. Photo courtesy of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Seattle Division.

The old windjammer enjoyed a number of years as a tourist attraction in Honolulu (and was even featured in a couple of episodes of Magnum P.I!) Unfortunately she fell victim to the all-too-common hazards of financing and deferred maintenance. By 2008 she was closed to visitors.

No longer a welcome presence where she sits surrounded by colorful fish, the Falls of Clyde awaits her fate. For years her advocates have strategized a way to keep her from the ocean floor. At this writing, the organizations Friends of the Falls of Clyde and Save Falls of Clyde - International have a plan to transport the ship back to her home country of Scotland next summer to be restored. If all goes well, she will enter drydock at Troon on the Firth of Clyde.

The Falls of Clyde in Honolulu, at the old "royal pier" adjacent to Aloha Tower, 2017. A maritime museum on the pier, seen behind the ship, closed in 2009. At this writing, nautical artifacts from the museum are being removed to storage in the care of the Bishop Museum. Photo, Alan Humphrey.

Detail of the bow and part of the bowsprit of the ship.  A thistle, the national flower of Scotland, is shown prominently. Photo, Alan Humphrey.

The USS Missouri: The Last Battleship...?

The battleship Missouri has no critical tie to the Hawaiian Islands. She was towed to Pearl Harbor in 1998 to join an eclectic group of marine museums run by the National Park Service, including the sunken USS Arizona and its iconic memorial and the submarine Bowfin. Since early 1999 Mighty Mo has been open to visitors; to date over seven million folks have toured the ship in her new home.

Although the Missouri did not launch until 1944, well after the attack on Pearl Harbor, she did play a  combat role in the war. Her most notable claim to fame is having served as the site of the formal Japanese surrender to Allied Forces. That event took place in Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945. It is considered the official end of World War II.

The USS Missouri, BB-63, dated after its 1986 reconstruction and recommissioning. 
From the collection of Puget Sound Maritime Historical Society.

The Missouri also had a long-association with Puget Sound. More than half her life was spent at Bremerton's Puget Sound Naval Shipyard as part of the Navy's "mothball fleet." Washingtonians became so accustomed to seeing the Missouri at various events and ceremonies around the sound, that when the Navy opened a bidding process to acquire the decommissioned battleship, citizens and elected officials of this state were quick to organize a drive to keep the ship here. The frustrating, contentious, and ultimately doomed effort, including claims of double-dealing by the Navy, are detailed in a HistoryLink essay by Daryl C. McClary.

Hokule'a and her sisters 

Hokule'a with her sails in the crab claw formation. Photo courtesy of Polynesian Voyaging Society

The Hokule'a occupies a strange place in maritime history: both modern and very ancient. The double-hulled voyager canoe, powered only by sail and oar, and using ancient wayfinding navigation, is a recreations of the ancient vessels that brought Polynesians to Hawaii and elsewhere sometime in the first millennium A.D. First launched with a big splash in 1976, Hokule'a gained new fame and relevance in the age of social media. Her three-year good will tour circumnavigated the globe, 2014-2017, and included a meet-up with the Draken Harald Harfagre, a recreation of a Viking ship, on the Erie Canal!

TWO TREES FROM ALASKA

The just-concluded World Tour did not include a stop on our West Coast. However, two decades ago, a goodwill tour brought Hokule'a and her sister ship, Hawai'iloa to our shores. The vessels were transported to Seattle by Matson Lines and first welcomed at Golden Gardens at the end of May, 1995. For the next few months, the canoes, together and separately, visited a number of ports of call from Alaska to San Diego. In the Northwest the vessels were seen at the Center for Wooden Boats, the Suquamish Reservation on Bainbridge Island, Neah Bay, Bellingham, Tacoma and Vancouver. Hokule'a participated in National Maritime Week festivities on the Seattle Waterfront during the third week of May.

An important part of the mission of Hokule'a is to make contact with indigenous populations around the globe. Hawai'iloa had a special mission in the Northwest -- to thank the Native Alaskan tribes that had provided two massive Sitka spruce logs to form the hulls of the vessel. Unlike Hokule'a, which used some modern materials in construction such as fiberglass and plywood, Hawai'ilo was  to be built with only indigenous materials. Unfortunately, by the 1990s logging had taken a toll on the stands of koa, the famous hardwood, in Hawaii. In desperation, the builders turned to friends in Alaska and found sympathetic ears among the Tlinget, Haida, and Tsimshian peoples who managed a large wilderness area. With the gift of the trees, freshly-cut for the purpose, Hawai'ilo was launched in 1993.

We caught up with Hokule'a on a gloomy day at her home berth in Oahu: the Marine Training Education Center on Sand Island. The Hikianalia, another sister ship, sits to the fore. Though not the best location for photographs, this one does show the size of the canoe relative to small sailboats. 

Aloha 'oe!

________________________________________________________________________________
Sources include Karl House and Joe Baar, PSMHS; Saltwater People Historical Society; Polynesian Voyaging Society; Friends of the Falls of Clyde; HistoryLink.org.

Backtracks

This will be a post devoted to a personal challenge of mine: a journey to visit and document sites and artifacts connected with the age of exploration (writ small to encompass anything I want it to). Along the way perhaps we will solve the ultimate historical question: who discovered america (again, writ small so that I can include everything from Hawaii to Newfoundland)?

Note that some of the connections I present here are very loose; some may not exist at all. It's all about the journey!

Let's start with ICELAND!

Leif the Lucky Bridge

The bridge between continents. Specifically, the bridge represents a link between the Eurasian and North American techtonic plates, so that you can walk from one continent to another. Sort of.

Skalholt

Skalholt, in Iceland's southern region, from a distance looks like a fairy tale village. The religious settlement has been in existence since at least the 11th century. 

The modern cathedral church is built on the site of several earlier versions and over a medieval crypt which currently serves as a museum. It's cool! A secret passageway (below) leads from the crypt outdoors to the site of the old ecclesiastical school. The tunnel may have had a variety of uses, including quick ingress or egress during rough times. (Skalholt is famous as the site of a violent and dramatic event in 1550 when the last Catholic bishop from Iceland's north was beheaded along with his two sons. A memorial a few steps from the current church marks the spot.)

Some of the remnants of the ecclesiastical school, dormitories, and store roooms uncovered by archaeologists immediately adjacent to the church.

An 18th century diagram of the Skalholt ecclesiastical community.

The tunnel exit.

Monument to the martyred bishop Jon Arason and his sons, executed in 1550. It's a long story.

A recreation of a sod church at Skalholt.

Skalholt's connection to our project is the Skalholt Map, a 16th century resident scholar's attempt to make geographic sense of the Norse sagas and other sources describing the voyages to Vinland. Unlike some other maps, the Skalholt Map is considered geniune, although only copies exist today. This map pinpoints Vinland (Promotorium Winlandia) at what most scholars believe is Newfoundland.

Lagerbrekke

A windswept spot on the Icelandic Coast, as they all are, on the Snaefellness Peninsula features a monument to the remarkable woman, Gudridur Thorbjarnardottir, the sister-in-law of Leif Erickson and the mother of the first European child born in the New World, Snorri. Probably. Both are depicted in a Viking ship in this small statue.

Detail of above.

Lava rock walls frame the monument.

Eiriksstadir

We visited the archaeological site Eiriksstadir where one can see remnants of structures built by Erik the Red, father of Leif Erikson, as well as re-created longhouse.

The view down to the fjord from Eiriksstadir, "Erik's Homestead, at Haukadel, "Hawk Valley," which is also the name of the lake.

Inside Eiriksstadir, a recreation of a Viking longhouse spitting distance from the footprint of the house built and occupied by Erik the Red. It is likely that Lief was born at this place, about AD 974, before the family decamped for Breidafjord and, later, Greenland.

The firepit.

A knowledgeable and entertaining costumed interpreter gives us the low-down. We agree to meet at L'anse aux-Meadows.

Monument to Leifur Eiriksson.

Plan of the archaeological site, and, below, my husband photographs something in the weeds.

The sod house recreation of Eiriksstadir

Frambudir

Talk about "remnants!" A wide spot on a little-trodden trail along the cliffs at Budir features traces of old fishing huts. Frambudir was a seasonal fishing station dating back to medieval times. The whole area around Budir is pockmarked with old ruins and pits. Watch your step! The lush landscape of wildflowers easily disguises them.

And on to Hawaii!

Like Iceland, Oahu is a volcanic island with plenty of lava for building walls. Pu'u o Mahuka Heiau, the remnants of a 17th century temple. Reportedly, two or three of George Vancouver's men were killed here in 1794, possibly as human sacrifices. 

Locals still make offerings at the shrine.

Regulars.

A recreated voyaging canoe, Hokule'a, has established a strong possibility that Polynesians sailed to the Hawaiian Islands possibly as early as 1500 years ago -- and perhaps farther? 

Model of a voyaging canoe in the Bishop Museum, Honolulu. This modern model was inspired by Hokule'a.

The real Hokule'a, sails furled, as close as we could get on a grey day, at the Marine Education Training Center in Honolulu.

Newfoundland: In the steps of Leif

We make it to L'Anse aux Meadows. This was the end goal of our trip to Newfoundland in July 2018. L'Anse sits on the northern tip of this island. There is good evidence to support the theory that this was the site of Leif Erikson's Vinland, as detailed in the Icelandic sagas. While some still dispute this, the government of Canada found enough proof in the archaeological site uncovered in the early 1960s to create a national park here, complete with replica buildings. 

The recreated forge which, in reality, stood some distance away from the collection of sod huts.

"Workshop/Atelier"

Depressions in the earth indicate the site of structures dating to the early 11th century.

L'Anse aux Meadows sits adjacent to a not particularly sheltered bay of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. For the Norse,  who navigated by sight, it was more important that they be able to spot the settlement from the sea than that they be protected from storms.

"Dwelling and wood working"

"Dwelling, ship repair, and iron forging"

Leif is honored with a statue on the seashore a few kilometers from L'Anse.

Imagine our surprise, upon reading the plaque, to find that this statue is a replica of one on Seattle's Shilshole Bay and donated to the citizens of Newfoundland by a group of Seattleites! The plaque, pictured below, lists The Swedish Club of Seattle, David Johnson of Seattle, and various Sons of Norway.

All photos in this bit: Alan Humphrey.

The original Leif Statue, Shilshole Bay, Seattle. Replicas were provided to L'Anse aux Meadows, Trondheim, Norway, and Brattahlid, Greenland, all places associated with Leif the Lucky.

I love the Norse-inspired etchings of the Seattle monument.