Courtesy of the Captain “Bud” Robinson Collection.
Entry 10: November 9, noon.
Wow, a real change. Wind’s swung right around to NNW and blasting even harder. Gale force. Got new ice and snow building up on deck. Amazing — have to watch what’s coming from behind us.
Entry 11: November 9, 2:00 p.m.
Piling up. Ice on the cables is amazing. Should be off Goderich; it’s really bad! Blanche, I love you dearly.
No more entries.
With that, he gathered the cloud, and seizing his trident in his hands, stirred up the sea, and roused the tempest blast of every wind, and hid the land and sea with vapour: and darkness swooped from the sky. The East Wind and South Wind clashed together, and the stormy West Wind, and the heavenborn North Wind, drove a vast wave before him.
— Lord Poseidon, upon meeting Odysseus, raising a storm.
Homer, from The Odyssey, Book Five.
Just One More Voyage — For This Season!
While the drums and cones of the signal towers at the Sault and all other stations down the lake warned of heavy storms, there was no indication as to the extent of the feral “white hurricane” that would follow. Even if the signals were up before the storm, they were not seen to be sufficient to keep the captains in. “These signals were simply used as guides to navigation,” later claimed a witness at the inquest. He went on to affirm that captains would have gone out at their own risk and they alone were responsible: “I would have gone out myself,” concluded Captain Whitney of the Lake Carriers’ Association.1
There was even a deceiving break in the early November gale that morning — a window that might allow safe passage to their Goderich destination. The barometer was rising. And, in the one humorous statement, also made at the inquest following the storm, a witness affirmed that “sailors hung their hats over the barometers so they could not see it going down.”2 Several captains must have agreed, for they all departed from the safety of the Sault Locks. At the other end of the lake, other vessels headed north, away from the security of the St. Clair River, at about the same time.
In its annual report for 1913, the Lake Carriers’ Association refers to the misleading conflict of the elements that prompted these departures. Their report for November 8 states, in reference to Lake Superior, where the storm had its origins, that “Vessels generally remained in port on that lake during the day or sought shelter along the north shore. During a lull of a few hours, in which it appeared that the sea was going down, and that the worst of the blow was over [vessels] put out.”3 For Lake Huron: “The northwest gale had practically died down to a breeze of about fifteen miles from the northwest, the sea being quiet…. Obviously, in such a condition, there was nothing to disturb an experienced navigator on the course that vessels usually follow in crossing this lake.”4
The Turret Chief is shown entering Goderich Harbour on a quiet afternoon. She was lost on Lake Superior during the Great Storm, but was recovered the next year.She was one of the famous “turret-hulled” vessels built at the Doxford Shipyards in Sunderland in 1896. The word turret is thought to be a mispronunciation of the word terrace, first assigned by Doxford to name the shape of the bulging side of the hull. The fattened hull would permit more cargo to be carried, thus enabling higher profit margins for the owners.
Courtesy of Huron County Museum and Historic Gaol, # 987-0012-008.
It is imperative to remember the complex navigation skills required of these early mariners. Today, with the assistance of computerized GPS devices to pin down locations to within a few yards, full-colour electronic chart plotters that show one’s exact position and course on an LCD computer screen, triple-scan depth-sounders that actually show the bottom contours as 3D images, electronic fluxgate compasses, and sophisticated autopilot steering devices, one would have to be a bit of a dolt not to find one’s way on the water. But in those earlier days, navigation depended on the insight of an experienced mariner, who required a refined set of skills to determine the vessel’s position using paper charts, a magnetic compass, a “lead line”5 to measure depths, and complex manual calculations. It took a combination of intuition, mathematics, and observation skills, often in periods of foul weather conditions and little or no visibility, to find your way. It is little wonder there could be problems.
So Captain Cameron steamed through the Sault Locks, too. According to the Detroit News, November 13, 1913, the Wexford “passed down at the Soo in company with the Willis King and others which have since arrived in Port Huron, but nothing has been heard of her.” But for some reason he chose to drop a hook at Hay Lake6 before heading farther south to De Tour, where he took on coal before the passage south across the stormy waters of Lake Huron to his destination at Goderich. The Wexford was seen lying at anchor at Hay Lake by the steamer City of Midland as the latter ship passed her by.
Cameron must have been wary that Lake Huron was not yet fit for the safe passage to Goderich. He may also have had concern about safely entering the Goderich harbour. There was a widely held concern that this port was not a safe haven. The narrow entrance made it extremely difficult to enter in heavy weather. As company owner Bassett stated deridingly during the inquest, “Your harbour here is like many others. It is a political $2.50 harbour, just good enough to hold the vote.”7
This image of the Wexford, thought to be taken in Fort William, was a popular postcard image in the lake-faring community. The lighter colour of the lower half of her hull was actually a rusty red, the colour of a much-used anti-fouling paint used at the time to keep boat hulls free of algae and scum.
Courtesy of the C. Patrick Labadie Collection/Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary, Alpena, MI, # 156067-156088.
Captain Whitney, who was the dock superintendent at Ashtabula, a major shipping and commercial Ohio port on Lake Erie, said, while appearing at the Goderich Inquest as Chairman of the Lake Carriers’ Association, that he had examined the foghorn, and as he considered it insufficient and inadequate, he would not care to attempt to enter this port in a storm. He suggested that one should be placed at the end of the pier and operated with the use of compressed air, similar to the ones in use at the American harbours.
As other ships passed him by that fateful night, Cameron must have mustered the courage to proceed, hauled anchor, and begun the journey down. As a novice master of only three weeks, he would not wish to be seen as unworthy of his new charge. It may be that his hesitancy set the stage for the tragedy that followed. Had he continued in company of those other ships that passed through at the Soo, he may well have reached his destination just ahead of the terrible storm.8
Captain Stephen of the steamer Kaministiquia, dubbed the “storm king”9 by hundreds of Goderich folk lining the docks to meet his freighter when it arrived safely at Goderich, saw the Wexford in fair weather, some 15 miles north of Point Clark about 10:30 Sunday morning, November 9. This sighting, some 30 to 35 miles north of her destination, the Port of Goderich, is the last time the vessel was definitively seen. She must have left her protected anchorage early the previous evening.
In another report, given in a television interview in 2002 by the then-elderly wheelsman Ed Kanaby of the H.B. Hawgood, Kanaby suggested