Star of Bengal

Historical Background

In September of 1908 an iron-hulled, three-masted sailing ship departed the Southeast Alaska fishing town of Wrangell laden with 5,260 cases of salmon.

The bark Star of Bengal belonged to the Alaska Packers’ Association, the state’s dominant canned salmon producer at the time, and carried 21 crewmen plus 117 cannery workers. Two steam-powered tugs began towing the ship out of Wrangell toward the open sea about 8:20 a.m. on Sept. 19, 1908. The barometer readings indicated fine weather.

However, it wasn’t long before the weather turned for the worse and as Coronation Island loomed on the starboard quarter, one of the tugs lost steerage in the mountainous seas. The remaining tug, unable to hold way, was forced to cut her cable, abandoning the Star of Bengal.

Dragging her anchors the Star of Bengal crashed on the rocks off Helm Point. After a failed attempt to rig a line to shore, Captain Wagner ordered, “Abandon ship.” The men found themselves flailing amid thousands of boxes of canned salmon, fuel drums and other debris that bludgeoned the shipwreck victims in the breakers.

“Swimmers had but little chance in the water, as the waves looked like solid walls of salmon cases and gasoline tanks,” one survivor, Frank Muir, told the Wrangell Sentinel.

“The scenes on the beach were simply indescribable,” Wagner said. “We saw 27 mangled corpses tangled in among the wreckage. Some of these were crushed and even disembowelled, and some were minus legs and arms.”

Wagner, who was pulled half unconscious from the surf, accused the tug captains of criminal cowardice. “I will send them both to San Quentin if it is possible,” he told the Wrangell Sentinel. Meantime, shipping inspectors initially revoked Wagner’s master and pilot license.

In the end, however, all were cleared of blame in what one government fisheries analyst called “a disaster without parallel in the history of the Alaska salmon industry.”

Mission

On May 15th team members will attempt to retrace the ill-fated journey of the Star of Bengal to her wreck site on Coronation Island. Their journey will actually start in Bellingham, WA where they’ll wheel their kayaks aboard one of the Alaska Marine Highway System ferries bound for Wrangell, Alaska.

Once in Wrangell, they’ll document the town, it’s attractions and history before setting out with their kayaks westward for Coronation Island to visit the wreck site. Time will be tight, as the team only has two weeks to complete the 200 mile round trip journey to what the Coast Guard describes Coronation’s Helm Point as “perhaps the most conspicuous and prominent headland in Southeastern Alaska” (US Coast Pilot #8, 1984)