SHIPWRECK ON KOOTENAY LAKE

This story is taken from Susan’s book Shipwreck on Kootenay Lake, The Story of the S.S. city of Ainsworth.  Hear the chilling sequence of events which lead up to an unbelievable, and perhaps avoidable, maritime disaster which claimed nine lives back in 1898. This presentation can be expanded into a one hour program, which includes the 20-year search for the wreck of the City of Ainsworth and details about the exciting re-discovery of the historic vessel which occurred in 1990. 

Excerpt:
“The accident occurred during a fierce storm on a dark night on Tuesday, November 29, 1898. Because all the lights were extinguished when the City of Ainsworth rolled over, survivors recalled the sounds and smells of the disaster.

Photo by S.R. Faye and The Nelson Daily News
The City of Ainsworth, with a heavy load of cord wood stacked across her bow, photographed at the dock in Pilot Bay in 1896 or 1897. This is the dock from which the vessel left on her last ever voyage on that fateful night of evening of November 29, 1898.

“The first thing to happen was that the icy cold water of Kootenay Lake hit the boat’s boilers and firebox. In an instant a huge fire was quenched and jets of steam tore from the bowels of the vessel to whine and hiss and bubble around the terrified men who clung to the wreck. There were other frightening sounds too - the high pitched scream of bolts and nails turning freely in slack joints; the staccato clatter of chains and cables hitting, metal on metal awash in the water; and ominous, dull thumping sounds coming from inside the hull as freight and furnishings broke loose and floated around. And above all this was the relentless howl of the wind which drove huge waves over parts of the vessel and doused the men with icy spray. 

“There were unfamiliar odours, too. The acrid stench of hot metal, the pungent earthy smells of smoldering oakum and wet charcoal, and the reek of spilled fuel and burned food. With each new rush of the storm these horrible smells leaked out in little puffs and gusts from between the boat’s planking, driven out by the water which was inundating her hull. There was another smell, too. A smell passed back and forth among the men who clung like bugs to the boat’s white sides and underbelly - the smell of fear.”