The Bessie K. Lost at Sea
A steamship overdue from Alaska is discovered shattered against the rocks north of Victoria, with no signs of survivors.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
A passenger who has just arrived in Seattle from Alaska on the steamer City of Seattle has informed Agent Grauman of the steamer Bessie K. that the wreck passed by the City of Seattle north of Victoria, which was reported last night, had all the appearance of being the Bessie K., seven days overdue. The wreck lies 100 miles north of Victoria, on the rocks, and there are no indications of any survivors. The Bessie K. is owned by J. S. Kimball Co. of San Francisco, and left that port for Alaska with a heavy load of freight and passengers. She has a capacity of 100 passengers and 250 tons of freight, and was scheduled to leave here for Dyea on March 1. She is supposed to have been wrecked on her voyage south, having been on the track of the late disastrous storm that swept the northern coast. So confident is Manager Grauman that the boat is lost that he has canceled the passengers booked for the next trip north. Owing to the fact that the Bessie K. was coming south, it cannot be learned how many she was carrying.
“So confident is Manager Grauman that the boat is lost that he has canceled the passengers booked for the next trip north.”
The maritime dangers of the Klondike Gold Rush era were legendary, with poorly equipped vessels often succumbing to the treacherous weather of the Inside Passage. Today, the route is a well-monitored corridor, but the ghost of the Gold Rush persists in the countless wrecks that still litter the seafloor along the coast.
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