A century-old sea tragedy will be remembered at noon on Sunday at Garry Point Park when descendants from the crew of the Onward Ho! gather at the Fisherman’s Memorial to pay their respects.
It was on Jan. 6, 1916, that the ill-fated ship left Steveston Harbour to fish for halibut off Cape Spencer, Alaska before vanishing from the icy waters.
Loaded down with a reported 180,000 pounds of fish, battling stormy weather and a treacherous build-up of ice on the decks — rendering her top-heavy — the vessel presumably capsized, taking all 30 or more of her crew down with her.
No remains of the ship or her crew, some of whom were natives of Norway, were ever found. Left behind were wives and children, some of whom will be represented by family members at Sunday’s memorial.
Some will come from the Lower Mainland, and others will have made the trek from Norway, where earlier this year, another memorial was held.
One of the descendants is Langley’s Mark Hutchinson, the great-grandson of first mate Hedley Hughes.
His wife, Marian Buechert, told the News the event has mostly been organized by family members of the crew from Norway.
Kristin Overaas, great-granddaughter of the Onward Ho!’s cook, Jens Bendicksen Aas, hosted the memorial there about a month ago, Buechert said, adding that ceremony took place unbeknownst to her.
“We found out about a month ago,” she said, when she received an invitation for the Steveston event.
The Onward Ho!’s crew was made up of a mixture of immigrants and locals. It’s not known how many may have lived in Richmond at the time. First mate Hughes came from New Westminster, Buechert said.
“He’d moved there with several members of his family, from (Digby) Nova Scotia,” she said. “Other members of the crew were immigrants, mostly from Norway and maybe one Dane.”
Buechert said the accounts of the sinking were heart-breaking.
“They sailed out on the 12th day of Christmas, the weather wasn’t great and when they got out into that area of Alaska, apparently there was a huge ice storm and their hold was already full of halibut,” she said. “They were also pretty iced over that that point. You just kind of imagine the crew chopping away frantically, trying to clear the deck in what turned out to be a hopeless cause,” Buechert said.
“Then, there were all the wives waiting at home. Mrs. Hughes had five children and would have been left to her own devices to raise them. It was very sad.”
Sad, too, was the fact Hedley wasn’t even supposed to be on the ship.
Buechert said he was added to the crew as a last-minute replacement for another man who had injured his leg.
The tragedy, though significant in scale, was likely passed over at the time, due to the myriad of losses reported during the First World War, Buechert said.
In respect for the loss, names of most of the crew were added to the memorial at Garry Point in 2014. The remainder have been requested to be added.
On Sunday, the family, which will also include the granddaughter of Hughes, will cast red roses on the waters off Garry Point — one for each crew member. A trumpeter and sea shanty crew of singers will add to the spectacle.
