Beneath the shadow of World War I 
and the Spanish Influenza,
as the world was still recovering 
from Titanic's deadly run,
the North Pacific took its toll.

Having sailed from Skagway Alaska 
headed south toward Vancouver,
the steamer reached Lynn Channel
when misfortune overtook her 
in the winter of nineteen-eighteen.

That fateful day in late October
twenty miles from Juneau's Auke Bay 
in the midst of a raging storm,
Vanderbilt Reef claimed its prey
as the gale blew from the north.

Three-Hundred Fifty souls on board
prayed two long, stormy days
but rescue ships were forced to flee
the blizzard kept them away
and we lost Princess Sophia. 


 may 2004


The Princess Sophia slid off Vanderbilt Reef at five o'clock 
on October 25, 1918, in Lynn Channel off the North West Coast of BC, 
after having hit the reef two days before. All on board perished. 
It was the worst tragedy in the North Pacific, 
sometimes called the Yukon's Titanic.