Northern Ships and Shipping

Dateline: May 17, 2024.

    The information on the Evelyn / Norcom that follows is simply a cut-and-paste from my database, compiled from a wide variety of sources, primarily newspaper articles.

• Norcom: Canadian Shipping Registry #116613

• wooden sternwheeler; 130 feet long, with 28.6 foot beam and 4.2 foot hold. Gross tonnage 508, registered as 397 tons.

• powered by a pair of horizontal high-pressure steam engines built by Clinton Novelty Iron Works of Iowa; the cylinders had 12 inch diameter and 54 inch stroke, rated at 9.6 NHP.

• 1908, built at Seattle by Bratnober, for the Upper Tanana Trading Company.

• sold to the North American Trading & Transportation Company.

• September 11, 1908:
  

     The new steamer Evelyn has been launched at St. Michael, Alaska.It is planned to have her make at least two trips up the Fairbanks river this fall, and to come up the Yukon to Dawson, with some of the last passengers of the year, then to proceed to Hootalinaqua, where she will winter, and be ready to leave there on the first water in the spring for Fairbanks.
     The Evelyn is one of the finest light draft craft, it is understood, ever planned for the Yukon. She is said to be as speedy as anything on the Tanana, not excepting the N. N. company's swift Tanana, and there may be considerable rivalry hereafter for the broom. The Evelyn is 130 feet long. She was constructed to succeed the lost Ella, and has the boilers fron the Ella.

• September 15, 1908: "The new N. A. T. & T. Co.'s steamer Evelyn, now on her way from St. Michael, is expected_to take the place of the Ella, which was sunk near Tolovana two years ago this summer. She is equipped with the machinery from the Ella which gave that boat power to compete with any boat on the river. It will be recalled that the Ella was built by Bratnober at Whitehorse, in 1905, and he made a trip up the Tanana the same season on this boat, reaching a point further up the river than was ever reached before, or ever has been since." (Fairbanks Daily Times)

• wrecked on the Tanana River; machinery hauled to St. Michael, where a new hull was built. She may have been rebuilt by Merchant's Yukon Line (Affleck).

• July 4, 1912, at Fairbanks (DDN, July 4)

• May 9, 1913:
  

      Captain Sid Barrington, president and manager of the Side Streams Navigation company, who has arrived from the outside, states that his company has bought the steamer Evelyn, now at the mouth of the Tanana river, and will run her on the Dawson-Whitehorse route this season. He says:
      "Our company is out for the business. We have arranged for some traffic, but can take a good deal more. We will cut the freight and passenger rates 50 percent. This will apply to all business between Whitehorse and Dawson and all way business. We mean to put the rates down from the beginning and to keep them down. Our quotations are not temporary.
      "The Evelyn is one of the most powerful boats on the Yukon for her size, and we are having her remodeled to accommodate seventy-three passengers first class and fully as many second class.
      "The company will continue its service up the Stewart with the Vidette, and, since it stood by the Stewart river people when they could get no other service, we expect them to stand by us now.
      "We bought the Evelyn from the Merchants & Yukon Transportation company, which has been operating on the lower Yukon, and which acquired the boat some time ago from the N. A. T. & T. The Evelyn will be able to make a round trip between Dawson and Whitehorse about every five or six days. She is 130 feet long and twenty-seven of beam. With the added cabins she will be a neat and comfortable craft, and will have good freight accommodation. She is a comparatively new boat and suitable for all around service. (The Weekly Star, via Dawson News)

• May 30, 1913: "A. F. Zipf, traffic manager of the Northern Navigation company, arrived from the company's headquarters, San Francisco, Tuesday of this week. ...While here Mr. Zipf received a wire from Dawson informing him that the steamer Evelyn, recently purchased by his company from the Merchants' Yukon Transportation company and recently leased to Captain Sid Barrington by whom it will be operated on the Whitehorse-Dawson run this summer, is being towed from Fairbanks to Dawson where she is due today, May 30. The Evelyn will be placed under the Canadian flag at Dawson and her name changed to Norcom. Mr. Zipf added that there is strong likelihood of another steamer in addition to the Norcom being operated with her as a sister craft." (The Weekly Star)

• June 13, 1913, ad in The Weekly Star (Whitehorse):
  

• February 13, 1914: a rate war on the entire length of the Yukon River will continue this season. "Captain Sid Barrington, manager of the Sidestreams company, on his return from San Francisco to Seattle less than three weeks ago, said: "It is not the intention of our company to construct any new steamers for the Whitehorse-Dawson run but the steamer Norcom will be equipped with new boilers and will be generally overhauled, one of the improvements being a new observation room. With her new equipment we expect the Norcom to make the run from Dawson up the river to Whitehorse in three and one half days. ...I expect to arrive in Whitehorse with crews for both the Norcom and Vidette about the middle of March. We will have 80 tons of freight to take over the ice to the foot of the lake. This will be taken on to Dawson by the Vidette on the opening of navigation but the Norcom will come from the foot of the lake where she is tied up for the winter, to Whitehorse as soon as the lake is open and will take a cargo of passengers on her first trip. The rates will be the same as last year, ten dollars either up or down between Whitehorse and Dawson." (The Weekly Star)

• August 7, 1914: "George Chapman is at Hootalinqua for a few days assisting in consigning the steamer Norcom to the marine boneyard." (The Weekly Star)

• 1918, sidetracked at the Hootalinqua ways (COR 722).

• possibly damaged on the Thirty Mile and never repaired; machinery removed, and hull abandoned at Shipyard Island, Hootalinqua.

• 1922, the machinery may have been used in the KENO in (Affleck).

• 1926, boiler installed in the Atlin Inn; extra power was required due to a south wing being added, with 23 rooms and 5 bathrooms (COR 722).

• 1931, struck from the Shipping Register.

Norcom leaving Dawson, n.d. but ca. 1913 (Yukon Archives #3099) (photocopy)

The resolution of this 1961 government aerial photo of Hootalinqua Island is quite coarse but the Norcom can still be seen.

This aerial photo is from the Institute of Nautical Archaeology's 2007 Annual.

The Hootalinqua Island Shipyard in August 1997.
"Our Time Machine is a Canoe" tells the story of the canoe journey that took us there.
The sign reads: "In 1913 the British Yukon Navigation Company built a set of 'ways' where steamers were wintered, thus avoiding ice damage during spring break-up. A vessel was drawn up on the greased wooden skidways by cables wrapped around its hull. Horses slowly turned four capstans, winding up the cable and pulling the ship into place. It was then levelled and blocked up on the ways for winter storage."

August 1997.

In August 1997 the name Evelyn could still be seen plainly to the left of Norcom.

August 1997.

August 1997.