Maritime archeology helps recreate unique history

• Pratt Museum launches a year-long project to collect historical information, form collaborations between artists-scientists
By Naomi Klouda
Homer Tribune

HOMER TRIBUNE/Naomi Klouda - Hans Van Tillburg, a maritime archeologist, talked about the understanding shipwrecks as an important way to puzzle history together for a region.

Kachemak Bay was a cross roads for activity among tribes and a sea-faring way stop for sailors who left behind a few clues to their concerns and activities.
“Who lived in the Bay” is the topic of a year-long project launched by the Pratt Museum to take a broad look at the area’s archeology. In one of the first events, the Pratt hosted a presentation by maritime archeologist Hans Van Tilburg Thursday evening to talk about the rich undersea resources that help puzzle together the history of marine environments.
“It’s good to take a broad approach to look back and see who has been there – the seafarers, sailors and fishermen who worked in that area,” Van Tilburg said. “There is something like 4,000 ship wrecks in Alaska waters, a very busy maritime history. Not all of them are historically significant and not all of them are accessible. But what you begin to see when you piece the archeology together are the human connections and material remains from a marine setting.”
Van Tilburg is the maritime heritage coordinator with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Honolulu, who specializes in recovering artifacts from sea diving. He was involved in several Alaskan maritime excavations, including the Clara Nevada, a Klondike gold rush era steamer that sank in 1898 off Eldred Rock as it was headed south down Lynn Canal from Skagway and the Kad’yak Project, a Russian ship loaded with ice for San Francisco when it sank off Kodiak Island.
Recovering shipwrecks in Alaska has its challenges. The older ships were built mostly of wood, which disintegrates over time in the water. But the steel parts, cannons, copper rods, dishes and other artifacts can help piece together the story of a time period and the events of a wreck.
The ships recovered so far in Alaska are not great in number, Van Tillburg said. But those that have been investigated by the State Office of History and Archeology, particularly under State Archaeologist Dave McMahan, show a rich maritime history from the global whaling era to World War II era crafts.
The Clara Nevada, for example, left no known survivors and was rumored to be carrying a cargo of gold. The 150-foot sailing ship was constructed in 1872 as a U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey vessel. It was named for the agency’s first superintendent, Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler. The Hassler initially served as a research vessel from which the famed naturalist Jean Louis Agassiz gathered deep sea samples in the Strait of Magellan. It later spent many years performing hydrographic survey and other government work in Alaska, where it became an important part of local culture. Then it was decommissioned and purchased by the Pacific and Alaska Transportation Company and was on the return leg of its first voyage under the name Clara Nevada when it went down.
Over time, the idea of getting to the Clara Nevada related to locating its gold, but that wasn’t what they found, Van Tillburg said. The team documented frames and portions of the double-steel hull, as well as remains of the vessel’s engine, windless, and other meaningful architectural elements.
In August 2003, the remains of the Russian-American Company bark Kad’yak were discovered near Spruce Island by Kodiak. This is the oldest vessel discovered to date in Alaskan waters. On her final voyage, the Kad’yak loaded a cargo of ice for shipment to San Francisco, where the Russian-American Company traded goods. The Kad’yak left Sitka for the final time on Feb. 27, 1860, to pick up a cargo of 356 tons of ice at Kodiak. On putting to sea from the Kodiak harbor on March 30, the vessel hit a submerged rock and immediately filled with water. The Kad’yak remained afloat, drifting toward Spruce Island.
There, the mast of the ship protruded above the water with a single yard forming the shape of a cross, visible from the shrine of Father Herman (later St. Herman) on the shore of Spruce Island. This lent religious significance to the story of the vessel’s misfortune. According to legend, the Kad’yak’s captain failed to fulfill his promise to venerate relics of this famous monk in Kodiak Cathedral prior to his departure from the island.
The most famous shipwreck in Kachemak Bay is the U.S. Army ship Torrent, which sunk in 1868 near Port Graham. State Archeologist Dave McMahan said the data base of shipwrecks doesn’t categorize them by location, and so it is difficult to say how many others are in this area that may have historical significance.
“We have all these ship wrecks, but we don’t have an underwater marine archeology program in Alaska. There is a big need and it is expensive, so we do a little bit at a time,” McMahan said. A lot of the work so far was in collaboration with universities or partners like NOAA’s Van Tillburg.
The Howitzer cannon recovered from the Torrent, for example, is being reconditioned at Texas A & M University because Alaska doesn’t have the an archeology lab, McMahan said.
For the Pratt project, the idea to foster new collaborations between scientists and artists, said Holly Cusack-McVeigh, Pratt curator. The scope is to educate the general public about scientific methods and archaeological work conducted on the Kenai Peninsula, with  community-wide presentations to be held throughout the year.
The Pratt Museum invites individuals to participate in this exhibit by producing original artwork for exhibition from Nov.11 to Dec. 30. Artists must notify curator Cusack-McVeigh of their intent to participate by Sept. 3.