An Alaska Steamship logo from a late 1930’s map of their routes.
Detail of a colorful Alaska Steamship map from 1936. Notice the artwork below the
map, attempting to show the kinds of activities available aboard ship! This map was
on the inside of a brochure; a full wall poster-
Jean Lund’s Voyage on the SS Cordova to Ouzinkie Begins
“October, 1945: As Seattle faded in the distance, the sun began to find its way out
of the clouds, and the views we began to behold were beautiful. The boat on which
I was now traveling was a surprise to me. I did not think that such small boats
were traveling the deep sea now-
The SS Denali in a 1940’s postcard, and a ticket stub from June 1946 of Miss Lund’s return voyage from Kodiak to Seattle (from her scrapbook)
The Denali was a frequent visitor to Kodiak. My parents remember the Denali as the vessel that regularly took Native students from around Kodiak Island down to Mount Edgecumbe High School in Sitka for many years. The venerable old SS Denali also made the last passenger run for the company in late September, 1954. After that, the company survived as a freighter firm until 1971.
Detail of a larger wrinkled late-
Kodiak and Ouzinkie are prominently featured as regular stops. The map is not terribly accurate or detailed. But apparently in addition to Kodiak and Ouzinkie, the steamships stopped at Alitak, Uyak and Uganik, all sites of large cannery operations and good dock facilities. Larger villages than Ouzinkie, Afognak and Old Harbor, are not on the route, because of having neither dock not cannery. However, the map singles out Port Hobron on Sitkalidak Island, by this time a closed down whaling station for at least ten years, as a spot for tourists to see whaling operations. Whether the steamships actually went there is not clear from the map. The rest of the map featured many such red dots, labeled according to the local interest.
A Small Delay in the Inside Passage
“At 9:30 that morning, they cast anchor, and when we asked why, we were told that we had reached the narrows just an hour too late. The tide was down, so we had to wait until 1:30 until the tide was up again. The crew took the opportunity to do the lifeboat drill, so we paraded around the deck in our life belts. The fire crew poured water from a hose down a channel in the deck, and then we took off our life belts, the crew raised anchor, and we were underway again.”
A Stop in Ketchikan
“The following morning, I awoke to find us awash in fog, and the beautiful scenery
was hidden. Every once in a while, we were able to view the snow-
The clerks in the stores were all very friendly, and they told me a little of what to expect of a winter in Alaska. Most of the ones I talked to had been to Kodiak at one time or another. I took another tour after dinner, and saw some totem poles, real ones, I was assured! I walked up the steep streets to view the homes built against the hills. I was surprised at how many bars or liquor stores there were in such a fairly small town. I guessed that the local life was a little wilder than what I was used to.
“The boat left Ketchikan at 9:00 PM, and I had already retired, after a long and interesting day. After Ketchikan, the boat headed out into open sea. By the next morning, the weather was turning bad, and we could see only faint glimpses of land as it faded behind us.” (Continued below…)
A luggage sticker from the ill-
How to Get to Kodiak (The Alaska Steamship Company)
By Timothy Smith, Originally posted in 2005, latest revision in 2020
How to Get to Kodiak: The Grand Old Steamships
Part of the “How to Get to Kodiak” series of articles
Aboard the Alaska Steamship Company’s SS Cordova in October, 1945
Introduction
This article makes use of rare postcards and memorabilia to chronicle the story of the great old ships of the Alaska Steamship Company, which were the main method of reaching Kodiak and other outlying areas in the years before regular airline traffic.
Most of the text from this article and its companion, “How to Get to Ouzinkie,” comes
from a first-
We are fortunate that Miss Lund kept a scrapbook of her journey, including a collection of maps, brochures, and even ticket stubs, all reproduced here, to take us back to a bygone era, not of cruise ships and luxury, but of aging and austere steamships, plying dangerous waters without modern conveniences like radar and GPS.
Some of the specific company information and data on specific ships comes from the “A Pictorial History of the Alaska Steamship Company” issue of the Alaska Geographic magazine, Vol. 11 No. 4, published in 1984 (although no photos from that magazine were used).
Four of the “ships of the line,” from an Alaska Steamship Company brochure, 1941.
Other ships in the display included the Aleutian, Yukon and Alaska. None of the brochures I have seen have shown a photo of the SS Cordova, which was one of the dowdiest of their fleet, as well as being by this time the oldest steamship in the company!
What it was like aboard ship
The next four photos, interspersed with Miss Lund’s account, were scanned from a
1941 brochure. They show the standard berths, the dance floor, and the social hall.
Deluxe staterooms had two-
Miss Jean O. Lund describes the facilities aboard the SS Cordova
“I was taken to my stateroom only to find a small room as long as our bunks, probably six feet wide and maybe eight feet the other way. Three stacked bunks in each room, and I was assigned to the middle one. There were only two of us ladies in this room, but it would have been very crowded indeed with all three bunks filled. On my right as I entered the room was our wash bowl in the corner under the window, which had wall board in it instead of glass because of the recent war and the blackouts. Between bunk and washbowl was a radiator, and on the wall underneath we stacked our big suitcases. On my left was a long seat with a cushion for comfort. Under this seat we piled three more suitcases, and the sixth one we put on the seat in the corner. We hung up our clothes and then opened the door to the deck and went out to acquaint ourselves with the other passengers and view the scenery. The ladies’ lavatory was just around the corner from our stateroom, and we were thankful for that. (Continued below…)
“I asked where the lounge room would be, for we did not find one on the deck where our cabin was. They told me it was on the next deck. So up I went, only to find a room about the size of our cabin, with benches around the wall like you would find in train stations, and a card table that had seen better days.
“As we were leaving sight of land, it was announced that everyone should get in line in front of the Purser’s window and get their seats for the dining room. I drew table number three, seat four, first sitting. At 11:30 AM the first chimes rang for lunch, so having nothing better to do, we went in and were seated and got acquainted with the ones at our table.” (Continued below…)
A Variety of Interesting Passengers
Miss Lund describes the fellow passengers on her voyage as a diverse lot, with many reasons to travel to Kodiak. There were schoolteachers for Old Harbor, government workers for the facilities on Woody Island, a grandmother and her granddaughter traveling to visit her brother who was still serving in the Army, and a young adventurer who had wandered off to Alaska to try his hand at homesteading, who ended up taking a cannery job instead, and was returning to work after a visit with his family in Seattle. There were many military wives heading north to be with their husbands (the restrictions having been lifted after the war), including her roommate, who was heading to Kodiak to manage a store until her husband was discharged. Jean Lund’s candid descriptions of her fellow passengers show them to be infused with an intrepid, infectious sense of adventure, sailing boldly into the unknown. Many of the pioneering Kodiak families I knew as a child in the 1950’s came to the island under similar circumstances. (Continued below…)
The “typical standard stateroom” depicted to the left would not seem very luxurious to us. Apparently an inside berth, there’s no porthole. Who knows what kind of ventilation the old ship was capable of providing. Miss Lund’s room had one extra bunk bed (or a trundle), so it would have been a sardine can. It had a small sink, and no restroom. She was pleased that the ladies’ restroom and shower was just down the hall.
The above brochure photos show the “social hall,” obviously on a larger ship than the SS Cordova, and appear to be reverse images of each other as you look in the corner of the room. The social hall was “about the size of our cabin,” writes Lund.
A color brochure photo shows young visitors on the bridge of an unnamed ship of the line.
The most austere conditions on the Alaska Marine Highway System’s oldest vessel (the ferry service) are balanced out by modern conveniences like modern radar, GPS, depth gauges, and a wide array of other modern navigational necessities, which the Alaska Steamship Company certainly did not have in October of 1945 when Miss Lund’s voyage took place.
Jean Lund Describes Food Aboard Ship
“I retired early the first night. Rising bell was at 7:00 AM, but I was awake and on deck at 6:30, only to find that during the night we had moved into a new time zone, and it was only 5:30. When I finally sat down to breakfast, they served eggs with ham, bacon or sausage, toast, pancakes, breakfast rolls, coffee, tea, milk, buttermilk or most anything you would want.
“All meals were good. They served fish at every meal if you wanted it. I saw veal, roast beef, pork chops and steaks on the menu. I was careful of my eating, for I knew what would be coming when we reached rough seas.” (Continued below…)
Two menu covers by Alaskan artist Josephine Crumrine, dated from the late 1940’s.
The Alaska Steamship line attempted to spruce up its image and rebuild its passenger traffic after the war. The series of menus featured Alaskan dogs, with their stories inside, and could be purchased as a set to mail home as souvenirs. Passenger service would not survive, eventually ending in 1954 due to the advent of regular plane service to most of their ports of call.
On a rainy, foggy day, a ship that’s either the SS Baranof or the SS Mount McKinley ties up at the old “Army Dock” in Kodiak in this early 1940’s Helsel photo.
The 373-
Below: An Alaska Steamship Co. Publicity shot, colorized by the author.
Jean Lund Describes Life on Stormy Seas
“Saturday morning I got up for breakfast. The boat was rocking more than it had. I went to the lounge after breakfast to write some letters, but at 9:30 I knew I could not take it any longer. Not many of the other passengers were around. I went down and went to bed. I got up for lunch, but could only eat a bowl of soup. I went back to bed, and stayed there for the next two days. More and more the boat began to rock, as we went further out into the deep. About 2:00 PM I lost breakfast and lunch, and drank some water with essence of peppermint, and that seemed to help a little.
“Sleep was a blessing, and I slept most of Saturday and Sunday. On Sunday afternoon, the storm grew stronger, and we rocked every which way. Toward evening, my head was so woozy that I prayed, ‘God, you stilled the tempest before; quiet the waves again now. I can’t take much more!’ I awakened in the morning and actually felt hungry for the first time in days. I ordered breakfast cereal and milk. The steward came with the cereal, but he apologized when he gave me canned milk. It seems all the fresh milk had soured. I tried to eat the cereal, but ended up pouring out the milk and eating the cereal mostly dry. But I started to feel better. By lunchtime on Monday I was able to wobble to the dining room and get through a bowl of turkey soup.
“By the next morning, things had calmed down enough that most of my fellow passengers were back in the dining room. At about 11:00 that morning we sighted land, and were all pretty glad about it! We were told we would dock in Kodiak at 4:00, but instead, we made it by 2:00, and I was off the ship by 3:00 PM in a pouring rain.”
Jean Lund’s Account Continues in “How to Get to Ouzinkie”
The end of the line: an Alaska Steamship Company freighter approaching the dock in Kodiak in this NCA photo postcard from the 1960s (photographer unknown).
The company held on as a freight carrier until 1971; Kodiak, Cook Inlet and a few
stops out “the Chain” were the few remaining ports served by the firm when it went
out of business, squeezed out of the passenger trade by Pacific Northern Airlines
and Northwest Orient, and squeezed out of the freight business by more modern, container-
About the vessel: The ship seems to be the SS Alvo Splice, with the first word hard
to decipher from the limited resolution of the postcard. Freighters with “Knot”
and “Splice” in their names were former coastal freighters of the Knot class, built
during World War II. The Knot class freighters were shorter than the more well-
A quick Google search for "Alvo Splice" reveals many sister ships, but no match to this photo. There are no “Splice” ships listed as Alaska Steamship freighters in the Alaska Geographic article, but it does not seem to be complete for passenger vessels either.
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