AJ Goddard Shipwreck
AJ Goddard Shipwreck
Cultural History
Cultural History
The small steel-hulled sternwheeler A. J. Goddard was prefabricated in San Francisco in 1897 along with a sister ship, the F.H. Kilbourne, and landed with Captain Goddard at Dyea along with sawmill parts. The components of the vessel appear to have been transported over the Pass in 1897-1898 and assembled at Lake Bennett for the Upper Yukon Company Ltd. The vessel received a Canadian registration number of 107517.
Her overall length was recorded as 15.24 m with a beam of 3.23 m, and a hull depth of 0.91m. Gross tonnage was 86.7, and registered tonnage was 54.63. She was powered by two horizontal high pressure steam cylinders with a 5.5" bore and a 20" stroke, built by the Pacific Iron Works in Seattle.
The A.J. Goddard steamed into Dawson City on June 21, 1898, the first common carrier to arrive from the Upper Yukon River. She was sold to Henry Munn of the Canadian Development Company, October 21, 1899 and, two years later, foundered at Goddard Point near the foot of Lake Laberge October 12, 1901 while towing a barge. Three crewmen drowned in the accident. Their bodies were recovered and buried behind the NWMP station at Lower Laberge. The exact location of the wreck remained a mystery until 2008.
The search for the wreck of the A.J. Goddard began in 1978 when Parks Canada sent forth a set of teams to discover submerged historic sites from the gold rush. They searched from Lindeman Lake where the earliest stampeder boats were built, to the head of the Thirty Mile River portion of the Yukon River. This actually included the waters off Goddard Point in Lake Laberge where the wreck was thought to be but no remains were found.
The Yukon Underwater Diving Association, with funding from several agencies including the Government of Yukon, under the direction of archaeologist Norm Easton continued the search in 1986 using depth sonar technology but, again, no clues were found.
In 2007, the Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA), under such people as John Pollack and Robyn Woodward, initiated a survey of wrecks from Carcross to Dawson City. The Yukon River Steamboat Survey developed a working group that included the Yukon Government, INA, ProMare, and the Royal Canadian Geographical Survey. A small team from the group set out to examine the known wrecks on the 30 Mile River. While on the way, they stopped at Goddard Point and, at team member Doug Davidge’s suggestion, stopped there to test out their side scan imaging system. A conventional fish finder located a sizable target in about 15 metres of water just off the Point. It was marked by GPS. In July 2008, Davidge returned on a solo trip and, using the GPS coordinates, lowered a small underwater video camera in the lake and saw what was clearly a large metal structure, hatches, planks and machinery. He had found the wreck of the AJ Goddard.
A detailed survey was begun on August 30, 2008 using a remote operated vehicle (ROV). A team of archaeologists, scientists and photographers spent five days in near freezing water to record the wreck in detail.[45]
Citations:
45: Lindsey Thomas, Doug Davidge and John Pollack, The Wreck of the A.J. Goddard, Yukon Government, 2012.
