Ship of Lost Souls: The Tragic Wreck of the Steamship Valencia

Scher (Sailing by Starlight: The Remarkable Voyage of Globe Star) explores the causes and consequences of the tragic wreck of the Valencia, a steamship carrying passengers and cargo from San Francisco to Seattle in January 1906. One of the worst disasters in an area known as “the graveyard of the Pacific,” the sinking of Valencia claimed the lives of 136 passengers and crew members, including the ship’s captain and every woman and child on board. Combing through contemporary accounts and the official investigations conducted by local, U.S., and Canadian commissions, Scher identifies a range of cascading failures that contributed to the disaster, most critical among them a lack of lighthouses and lifesaving stations along the coast of Vancouver Island, as well as that the ship was fundamentally unsuited for the waters it sailed. However, Scher places most of the blame on the inexperience of the Valencia’s captain and backs up his assertions with convincing evidence. Several chapters devoted to the development of radio technology and other matters peripheral to the wreck break up the tension of the narrative and may be deemed unnecessary by some readers.