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s Richard Sturgill, l., examines the Diamond NN No. 59 at Blaine Harbor. No. 59 is a vintage 1906 Bristol Bay sailboat, and Drayton Harbor Maritime’s latest historical acquisition. It was donated by Trident Seafoods Corporation to the nonprofit organization.

Photo by Brandy Kiger Shreve

October 24 - 30, 2013

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By Br a n d y Ki g e r Sh r e v e

Heavy fog and unsafe driving led to the death of two drivers early Tuesday morn-ing when a pickup passed a semi truck through heavy fog and struck a small se-dan.

Around 1 a.m. a 39-year-old Mississippi man, who has been identified as Wesley Martin, was headed eastbound on Grand-view Road, just east of Kickerville Road in Birch Bay, in a GMC pickup truck, when he passed the semi and crashed head-on into a Nissan Sentra driven by an 18-year-old Blaine woman, Angela Roderick, ac-cording to Washington State Patrol.

Both drivers died at the scene. “The decision to pass was not the best

choice for the pickup driver,” said Wash-ington State Patrol trooper Keith Leary. “Visibility was limited to between 50 and 75 feet, and, as the trooper on scene said, similar to pea soup.”

Martin worked with a BP contractor called Matrix.

Despite his vehicle being struck by one of the cars involved in the crash, the driver of the semi, Eric Seitz of Blaine, remained uninjured but was transported to St. Jo-seph hospital as a precaution, according to state patrol. His rig was hauling a a load of jet fuel from the BP Refinery.

It was unclear whether drugs or alcohol were involved, Leary said. Investigators will be reviewing a toxicology report to determine if there were any other factors in the incident.

“This is an extremely horrible reminder of why we need to take our time in in-clement weather,” Leary said. “Regardless of whether you are following a slower ve-hicle, you need to be patient, and if you can’t see a good distance down the road, you shouldn’t be passing.”

Leary said that with the unusual type of weather we’ve had this year that it could be an “interesting” season, and that driv-ers should plan ahead so they can arrive safely at their destination. “You can’t just drive the speed limit when your visibili-ty is reduced,” he said. “You really have to slow down and take your time.”

Two killed in early morning collision, fog was a factor

Birch Bay Drive project introduced for county actionBy ia n Fe r g u S o n

After some minor design changes, the Birch Bay Drive and Pedestrian Facility project has finally gained support from property owners – a fact that pleased Whatcom County Council members.

Whatcom County Public Works project manager Roland Middleton, delivered a re-port to the council’s public works, health and safety committee on October 22.

Council members voted unanimously to

approve the introduction of the county’s 2014 annual road construction program, which includes the preliminary phases of the Birch Bay Drive and Pedestrian Facility project, for future action. A public hearing on the program is scheduled for November 12.

“There has been more discussion sur-rounding this project than any other proj-ect in the history of Whatcom County,” Middleton said.

Renowned hydrogeological engineer

Wolf Bauer first recommended a beach restoration and flood control project when he analyzed the Birch Bay shoreline in 1975. In 1986 a portion of the project was constructed, and the continuation of the project has been an ongoing request of the community ever since. The request was in-cluded in the 2004 Birch Bay Subarea Plan as one of the top projects for the area, and was formally adopted into the Whatcom

By Br a n d y Ki g e r Sh r e v e

Drayton Harbor Maritime knows a good catch when they see one.

When Richard Sturgill, the founding director of Drayton Harbor Maritime, caught wind that Trident Seafoods Cor-poration was looking for a new home for its vintage 29-foot Bristol Bay sail-boat, he looked for ways to have it end up as part of their maritime heritage collection. “They wanted to give it to a nonprofit who would take stewardship of it and display it to the public,” Stur-gill said. “So we developed a plan to do that and they agreed.”

On October 17, Trident Seafoods offi-cially donated their 1906 seafaring rel-

ic to Drayton Harbor Maritime (DHM), the non-profit historical society that operates the Plover ferry and the coun-ty’s Alaska Packers Association (APA) Museum at Semiahmoo Park. Sturgill and others from DHM trekked to Ana-cortes to haul the boat home.

Trident Seafood had formerly used the boat as part of an exhibit at trade shows.

The boat, originally built in Astoria, Ore., is made of Port Orford cedar, a unique species of tree that grows in a small area of Oregon and California.

Sturgill said these boats were origi-nally built in the 1860s for use in Cali-fornia fisheries, but eventually became so popularly used by the canneries

A piece of seafaring history finds a home in Blaine

(See Boat, page 16)

(See Birch Bay, page 7)

along the Columbia River that they be-came known in the industry as Colum-bia River salmon boats.

For decades, these tiny, open sailboats trawled the waters along the western U.S. coast with gill netters aboard in search of salmon. The sturdy, double-ended boats were characteristic of the booming salm-on-packing industry that monopolized waters during a time when federal regu-lations kept motorized vessels out of the fishing lanes.

Known as Bristol Bay sailboats, they were used by canneries all along the coast, and were leased out to fisherman

2013Winner of

16 The Northern Light • October 24 - 30, 2013

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s Bristol Bay sailboats were common fixtures in the expanisve western canning industry. Historical photo courtesy of Drayton Harbor Maritime.

s Sleek, well-kept Bristol sailboats line up neatly outside of a can-nery.Below, now out of fashion and use, they rot in a boat boneyard.

Historical photos courtesy of Drayton Harbor Maritime.

s Jake Jacobson, l., and Norm Walsh assess the condition of Dia-mond NN No. 59 at Walsh’s shipyard.

Photo by Richard Sturgill

support the Birch Bay Drive and Pedestrian Facility project.

Ken BellLike the other candidates,

Ken Bell said he is focused on job creation. He said his busi-ness experience makes him well qualified to run the port.

A businessman with exper-tise in port logistics, Bell, 55, left Ferndale-based Recomp of Washington, Inc. in 1994 to start his own business. He turned over several failing pa-per and recycling companies, then founded and currently runs Best Recycling, which operates around the world, including at McMurdo Station in Antarctica and in the Yukon

Territories.“I love ports, I love the water-

front, I love economic develop-ment and as you can probably tell, I’m a bit of a salesman,” he said. “I think what this port needs more than anything right now is a salesman in their oper-ations because what we’ve got to do next is bring somebody here who can have an econom-ic impact on this county.”

As a property owner on Birch Bay Drive, Bell said he has a personal interest in the Birch Bay community.

“We will have your interests in mind, because we’re prop-erty owners here,” he said, referring to himself, his wife and his two daughters. “We care about the waterfront here; we care about the character of this place.”

When asked if he would sup-port the creation of restroom facilities on the Birch Bay wa-terfront as part of the Birch Bay Drive and Pedestrian Facility Project, Bell said he thought restrooms would be a great addition.

“I can speak from person-al experience that I have been running along this waterfront and wished I had them from time to time, so from an eco-nomic standpoint I could see supporting that. We have some bonding power that we can pro-vide from the port that would assist financially,” he said.

Ballots were mailed on Octo-ber 18.

If you haven’t received your ballot by Friday, October 25, contact the auditor’s office at 360/676-6742.

Port ...From page 10

for the season. The small two-man vessels were utilized six days a week to haul in the catch. “There was a captain and pull-er on each boat, and it was all business from Monday morning when they set out, until Satur-day night when they returned with the haul,” said Sturgill.

Sleek yet unwieldy, the boats were heavily used in the indus-try until 1952, when the federal regulations prohibiting motor-

ized boats in Bristol Bay were repealed.

Shortly thereafter, the boats that the APA had used for years began to fall out of fashion and out of production, leaving few remnants of their storied history.

Sturgill said even though this particular boat never fished in local waters, it is still a link to Semiahmoo’s past, noting that it was part of a fleet operated in Bristol Bay by an APA cannery known as Diamond NN on the Naknek River.

This particular vessel is des-

ignated as the Diamond NN No. 59.

“These boats are wholly unique to the west coast,” he said. “They built a lot of them and could build them in three days’ time here at APA carpen-try shop at Semiahmoo.” It was just one of many canneries, in-cluding a major fixture here in Semiahmoo, whose only rem-nants are the water tower and large buildings on the spit. The Semiahmoo APA operated until 1964.

Sturgill said his group has ambitious plans for the craft,

and will get to work straight away in hopes of meeting their self-imposed deadlines.

“Our first goal is to get the boat ready for the Fourth of July parade,” Sturgill said. “We’ll be sanding and repainting the hull to make it look presentable for that event. Then, as funds allow, we will be replacing 16 planks, fixing several ribs and recaulk-ing it to get it back in the water. We want to make it seaworthy so we can offer a maritime her-itage excursion out on an au-thentic Bristol Bay sailboat.”

Norm Walsh, owner of Wash Marine Shipyard in Blaine, has donated space at the shipyard to allow the group to work on re-storing the boat. Walsh’s father, Ron Walsh, was a shipwright at the former APA shipyard at Semiahmoo.

Sturgill said to complete the

restoration, the DHM will be launching a capital fundraising campaign that will allow folks to purchase a plank to help with the costs.

“We’re offering corporations and individuals an opportunity to be plank sponsors,” he said, noting that it will cost $500 for the purchase, fit and installation of each plank by a shipwright.

Sponsors will have their names engraved on a bronze plaque.

Though the boat is more than 100 years old, Sturgill said they still have good bones to work with in the rebuilding and hopes the process will go well.

“It’s in remarkable shape for its age,” Sturgill said.

For more information on how to be a plank sponsor, call Sturgill at 360/201-3062.

Boat ...From page 1