Trader Shipwreck

The Trader was a wooden coastal freighter built in Vancouver in 1901.   “She measured 101 feet long by 22.6 feet in breadth by 8.2 feet deep.  This steamer is strongly built for carrying ore”, declared a hull inspection report.

Her registered tonnages varied over the years, probably due more to changes in the calculation method than in structures.  At the end of her career she was deemed to be 172 tons gross, 94 net.  Her propeller was driven by a 17 horsepower steam engine.  She made eight knots.

On March 16, 1923, the Trader departed Vancouver Island, bound for Vancouver.  A cargo of cement filled her hold.  She met heavy weather as she tried to round Point Grey so Captain Fred Anderson ran for cover in the Fraser River.  The gale drove her onto a sandbar just 200 yards from the North Arm jetty.  The crew could do nothing for her in the falling ride so they took the lifeboat to shore.

By the time the storm abated, the Trader had been pounded to pieces.  The hull was holed, her upperworks were smashed.  She was written off as a complete loss.

For more information on the Gulf Streams and other shipwrecks on the Sunshine Coast, go to: UASBC.Com. You can order the publication Historic Shipwrecks of the of the Sunshine Coast from the Underwater Archaeological Society of British Columbia publications.

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