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Date: August 4, 2007
Explore the Strait of Juan de Fuca at the dawn of Anglo-American settlement during "Safe Passage: The Coast Survey Steamer
Active and the Charting of the West Coast, 1852-1860."
Park Ranger/Historian Mike Vouri will present this slide lecture at 2 p.m., Saturday, August 11 in the English Camp barracks. Admission is free. A golf cart is available to transport disabled visitors from the parking to the parade ground and back. Contact 378-2902/4409 for more special access information.
The
Active, a side-wheel steamer operated by the U.S. Coast Survey to take soundings and transport surveyors, also played critical roles in Indian uprisings, shipwreck rescues and the Pig War crisis of 1859. The lecture includes several images of the vessel, as well as photographs and watercolors of San Juan Island that were only recently found in the archives of Yale University.
The
Active began work here in the Gulf of Georgia region in 1853. After calling on Gov. James Douglas in Victoria, the surveyors established an observatory on the northeast side of Lummi Island in Hal's Passage, and the base line located on Sandy Point. From this base shore parties made the first U.S. triangulations of the San Juan Islands, while soundings were taken in passages. The ship returned here annually thereafter until the work was finished.
Vouri will provide an overview of these efforts, as well as discuss the technology of and the challenges of operating 19th century steamboats and surveying equipment.
