More than a century after a fatal shipwreck on Eldred Rock in northern Lynn Canal, a famous restored lighthouse will commemorate its 120th anniversary on Friday at Forbidden Peak Brewery. The Eldred Rock Lighthouse Preservation Association hosts the event.

It was a dark and stormy night in February 1898 at the height of the Klondike Gold Rush when the ship Clara Nevada departed Skagway and crashed onto the rocks protruding like daggers from dark Eldred Rock in the middle of Lynn Canal.

The fatal shipwreck spurred construction of lighthouses in Alaska. Today, the oldest existing Alaska lighthouse now shines in restored fashion on the site of the notorious and mysterious wreck. Thousands of ferry and cruise ship passengers have seen the building’s distinctive octagonal shape en route to Haines and Skagway.

Before the lighthouse was completed in 1906, Eldred Rock was a barren, windswept 2.4-acre island in the middle of Lynn Canal, 35 miles south of Haines and 55 miles north of Juneau.

The Clara Nevada was one vessel among a ragged flotilla of questionable seaworthiness resurrected to transport frenzied stampeders to the Klondike in 1897 and 1898. Demand outstripped available berths, so clever businessmen secured ships of all conditions to sail a thousand miles north from Seattle to the head of navigation at Skagway and Dyea. That was the easy portion of the journey to the goldfields. 

Hiking over the mountains and drifting another 500 miles on the Yukon River after building one’s own boat were the tricky segments. Packing a ton of required survival supplies made the trek more challenging.

But on the stormy night of the Clara Nevada’s last voyage, the ship had already delivered its first load of fortune seekers to the headwaters of Lynn Canal. The ship was returning to Seattle to pick up more adventurers when it grounded on the reef protruding from isolated and dark Eldred Rock.

Witnesses at nearby Point Sherman on the eastern mainland reportedly observed a ship on fire, then an eruptive fireball. Speculation suggested a cargo of unlawful dynamite had exploded. It was illegal to carry dynamite and passengers together. Apparently the explanation was the dynamite was initially destined for Treadwell Mine on Douglas Island, but failed to be offloaded when the Clara Nevada briefly docked in Juneau on its northbound trip.

Mystery surrounds the incident. Questions arise about whether or not some men escaped, took Klondike gold with them and assumed secret lives elsewhere. Only one body was recovered: purser George Foster Beck. The captain — or a man of the same name — seems to have bought a Yukon riverboat a couple of years later, casting doubt on the fate of the Clara Nevada crew. Ten years after the wreck, the story got more complicated.

The ship and its history

The wreck of the Clara Nevada made bold headlines around the Pacific Northwest and far beyond. Despite its poor condition in 1898, it had been a noble ship for nearly 25 years, serving as the U.S. Coast Survey vessel USS Hassler. It was built in 1871-72 at Camden, New Jersey. Its purpose was to research the underwater fauna, flora and geology along the West Coast. On board were sailors and scientists led by renowned Harvard scientist Louis Agassiz.

The Hassler had an unusual double-bottomed hull made of iron plates. Initial construction techniques eventually resulted in deterioration and rust of the plates, which led the government to decommission the Hassler in 1895. Three years later, the Pacific and Alaska Transportation Company bought the ship, renamed it Clara Nevada and put it into the gold rush fleet.

The initial voyage of the sail-equipped steamship Clara Nevada seemed doomed from the start. 

Departing the dock at Seattle, the ship backed into a government revenue cutter. During a stop at Port Townsend the ship struck hard against the dock and damaged her bowsprit. In Juneau, the ship was delayed for boiler repairs. Northbound passengers recalled unruly and drunken crew members. Nevertheless, the ship offloaded passengers and freight as intended in Skagway, then departed for the south in a wind-driven blizzard that proved to be the fatal end to the ship and its occupants.

The incident spurred Congress to establish aids to navigation along the American Inside Passage. Although well after the Yukon and Nome gold rushes had died down, the first two lighthouses were lighted on the same day in March, 1902: Five Finger Light south of Juneau and Sentinel Island Light north of Juneau.

Eldred Rock, site of the Clara Nevada grounding, received its octagonal light station on June 1, 1906. With its more weather-resistant concrete lower level, the lighthouse was not replaced like other wooden structures that deteriorated due to weather. The harsh northern Lynn Canal conditions battered the concrete Eldred Rock lighthouse, but it still stands today and is Alaska’s oldest lighthouse.

A bizarre incident occurred ten years after the Clara Nevada disappeared. The event is recorded in the keepers’ records and preserved in an article written by Lewis and Clark College historian Stephen Dow Beckham, grandson of the first Eldred Rock lighthouse keeper, Nils Adamson. 

Professor Beckham writes in the 2001 Oregon Historical Society Spectator publication:

“On March 12, 1908, a wild gale swept across the waters. Blinding snow obscured the view, waves pounded the rock and sea foam blew against the boathouse. At dawn, when the wind died down, (Assistant Keeper) Currie went outside. To his horror and that of Adamson and (assistant keeper) Silander, he found the Clara Nevada and the remains of dozens of the crew and passengers lying on the rocky margins of the north end of the small island. Then the storm returned, washing away the cadavers: the Clara Nevada settled back into her watery grave” (Profile, Nils Peter Adamson, Light Keeper, page 22).

In 1910 the two assistant lighthouse keepers disappeared after a short boat ride to a nearby settlement. The loss of Currie and Silander haunted the sole man left on the rock: head keeper Nils Adamson. He was tormented for the rest of his life by the disappearance and likely drowning of his associates. Adamson had been similarly traumatized at seeing the human and ship remains on the rocks in 1908 and asked for a leave of absence at that time, but was denied. He finally departed Eldred Rock in 1911, married in Oregon and spent the next 24 years in the navigation light service in Coos Bay, Oregon. 

Lighthouses unmanned in 1970s

Modern technology brought significant changes to the nation’s lighthouses 50 years ago. Eldred Rock was staffed by the U.S. Coast Guard until 1973, when many U.S. lighthouses were automated and subsequently unmanned. Today, the light remains functional, powered by solar panels, and maintained by the Coast Guard. Without volunteers, however, the building and thousands of other unique American lighthouses would be gone.

During the years of Coast Guard occupation the lighthouse was known as a particularly desolate and isolated duty station. Bleak and treeless, in 1963, guardsman Gordon Huggins transplanted a small spruce tree he dug from the mainland east of the lighthouse. In 2001, he returned to Eldred Rock in a PBS documentary titled Legendary Lighthouses of Alaska.

The spry older gentleman recounts his story of adding the first tree to the windswept rock. In the video, the spruce is fully grown and towers over Huggins as he looks up toward its crown. Sixty-three years after the three-foot spindly tree took root, it still filters the north wind that blasts the rocky site of Alaska’s oldest lighthouse.

Curiosity led to an underwater survey of the Clara Nevada/Hassler wreck in 2006-07 by federal and Alaska archeologists, divers, scientists and maritime historians as one of five sites in the Lynn Canal Shipwrecks Project. A series of project reports can be found on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s website.

“The archeological remains of the Hassler are considered to be one of the most significant submerged heritage sites in the modern history of Alaska and in the evolution of the Coast Survey as a federal agency dedicated to oceanic and coastal research,” states the NOAA website titled “The 2007 Hassler Expedition” in National Marine Sanctuaries. 

“The Hassler rests in a place of spectacular beauty but constant danger,” the report notes. 

Over four days, divers and remotely operated vehicles mapped and delineated the ship’s remains. Covered in sea growth and broken apart by subsequent storms, the Clara Nevada is dissolving into the ocean. 

The ship name Hassler did not die when the old survey vessel became the gold rush Clara Nevada. In 2012, a new NOAA research ship was commissioned as the USS Hassler to perform surveys on the east coast. It is a catamaran filled with advanced technology unimagined when the first Hassler rounded Cape Horn in 1872. 

Saving U.S. lighthouses for the future

Preserving America’s treasured lighthouses has been an important role for civic organizations. In 1975, Eldred Rock was added to the National Register of Historic Places. In 2000, an act of Congress allowed the nation’s deteriorating lighthouses to be leased to qualified nonprofits for care, preservation and eventual public use. A group of volunteers from Haines received authorization. 

The Eldred Rock Lighthouse Preservation Association has been actively repairing the building for several years. It’s been restored, renovated and cleaned inside. The exterior has been repainted by a crew of professional specialized lighthouse painters. Photos and drone videos are available on the nonprofit’s website. The group’s volunteer keeper program continues to seek participants for upkeep and maintenance. Interested volunteers may contact the association at [email protected].

To celebrate the completed restoration and structure’s 120th anniversary, the association will hold a Juneau grand opening celebration Friday from 5 to 7 p.m. at Forbidden Peak Brewery in Auke Bay. Announcements and door prizes will be given every half hour. The association plans to offer lighthouse cruise tours from Haines or Skagway starting in June.

On May 30, aboard a private cruise from Juneau, descendants of Nils Peter Adamson, the first lighthouse keeper, will step ashore onto Eldred Rock and walk in their great-grandfather’s footsteps, joining a special ribbon-cutting ceremony.

• Contact Laurie Craig at [email protected].