The Unseen Perils of the Puget Sound Fog
An experienced mariner describes the harrowing reality of navigating steamships through the thick, impenetrable mists of the late 19th-century Sound.
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 reporter asked an experienced mariner, 'What do you know about fog on Puget Sound?' The speaker replied: 'Well, I have seen all the fog I want to for some time past, and have run day after day through it so dense and thick that we never saw the shore line at all, until we docked at some wharf along our route. I remember some years ago when it seemed as if the whole Sound country was doomed to devastation by fire, so universal and intense were the fierce conflagrations that for months raged throughout the Sound. The immense volumes of smoke created by these fires would, in itself, have been bad enough, but in addition to this an unusual amount of fog was experienced that summer, so taking the fog and smoke together, the oldest captains on the Sound said it was the worst summer they had ever known. I was at that time an officer on one of the boats running between Tacoma, Victoria, and way ports. We carried the mails and passengers, and had to make time, fog or no fog. It was perpetually a profound wonder and amazement to me how the captain always found these ports, no matter how thick the fog. We always ran full speed, the steamer making something between twelve and fourteen knots an hour, sometimes the fog so blank and impenetrable that it was impossible from the pilot house to see the lookout on the top-gallant deck, not fifteen feet away. The hoarse blast of the whistle sounding its frequent notes of warning, the steady patter of the paddle wheels and the subdued voices of the captain and steersman are well calculated to arouse in the breast of novices an uncomfortable feeling of awe and danger.'
“The hoarse blast of the whistle, the steady patter of the paddle wheels and the subdued voices of the captain and steersman are well calculated to arouse in the breast of novices an uncomfortable feeling of awe and danger.”
While modern GPS and radar have replaced the visceral, white-knuckle intuition of 1880s captains, the 'fog pilot' serves as a reminder of how heavily the regional economy—then and now—relies on the treacherous, ever-changing waters of the Sound. Just as the mariner feared the 'blank and impenetrable' mist, modern maritime transit continues to navigate the precarious intersection of high-speed commerce and the sheer physical unpredictability of the Pacific Northwest.
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