October marks the 100th anniversary of the sinking of Princess Sophia in Lynn Canal, which remains the worst maritime accident in Alaska and British Columbia history.

Local historian Pam Randles told the story of the S.S. Princess Sophia this week at the Haines Sheldon Museum as part of its “Lunch and Learn” program.

The Sophia, a Canadian Pacific Railway steamer, was about the same size as the current state ferry LeConte and was built for passengers and freight.

Randles said after a long summer of work, roughly 350 passengers and crew boarded the boat on Oct. 23, 1918 in Skagway headed for Juneau, Wrangell, Ketchikan, Vancouver and Seattle.

In 1918 the Klondike gold rush was in its final years, and most of the passengers were departing the Yukon River valley’s struggling gold mining communities for the winter.

The ship also carried 24 horses, five dogs, some gold and 3,000 barrels of oil.

The ship left at about 10 p.m., three hours after its planned departure time, and just after passing Battery Point encountered a blinding snowstorm. With a tailwind pushing the Sophia faster than its average speed, it hit Vanderbilt Reef in Chatham Strait after 2 a.m.

The Sophia sat on the rocks for about 36 hours as 11 rescue ships from Juneau and Vancouver and the U.S. Army ship Peterson from Haines waited nearby for the storm to ease before mounting any serious rescue attempts.

The Princess Sophia had enough lifeboats and life preservers for all passengers and crew, a requirement after the sinking of the Titanic only six years prior. Several rescue efforts were attempted and then abandoned due to high winds and dangerous waves.

The Sophia spun on the reef and sank on the evening of Oct. 25. Only one dog survived.

Bodies washed ashore as far as 30 miles north and south of the reef in the months after the disaster. Among the dead was Walter Harper, the first person to reach the summit of Mount McKinley, the highest mountain in North America. There were also quite a few children on board, Randles said. Most of the bodies recovered were taken to Juneau for burial.

Randles said this tragedy wasn’t well known as it was overshadowed by coverage of World War I and the Spanish flu pandemic.

Haines Sheldon Museum director Helen Alten said the museum has floor tiles from Princess Sophia on display, collected by divers in the 1980s. It also has the ship log from the Army ship Peterson on display, which is open to the pages for Oct. 24 and 25, 1918.

Alten said the museum hopes to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the disaster in October.