The Wreck of Evelyn (Norcom)
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The Evelyn (renamed Norcom) was originally a U.S. registered, wooden-hulled stern wheel steamboat built at St. Michael, Alaska in 1908 by Bratnobar for the Upper Tanana Trading Company. Her hull measured 39.6 m by 8.7 m with a depth of 1.28 m. The vessel was powered by two horizontal, high pressure cylinders. At some point the ship was sold Northern Navigation Company and wrecked in the Tanana River. Her machinery was removed and taken to St. Michael where a new hull was built. She was converted to Canadian registry in 1913, and owned by the British Yukon Navigation Co. in 1919. She was beached on Shipyard Island and her engines installed in the Str. Keno in 1922. Registration was cancelled in 1931.
The ship now lies on blocks at an important (and now abandoned) shipyard and wintering area between Dawson City and Whitehorse, at the base of the Thirty Mile Section of the Yukon River. One boiler and smokestack remain, and the rest of the machinery has been removed. The paddlewheel axle, flanges and crank lie near the ship. While the upper superstructure is largely collapsed, the hull and freight deck are intact. The three tiller-and-rudder assemblies are complete and still work.
The LIDAR Survey
The 2007 mission of the Yukon River Survey is to locate and document historic Yukon River shipwrecks and hulls. Canada's Yukon Territories contains more accessible early sternwheelers than anywhere else in North America. Approximately 290 sternwheelers once plied the Yukon River, of which 110 were built in 1898 in response to the Klondike Gold Rush. Unlike broken fragments found in the Mississippi or Columbia River systems, the Yukon's steamer wrecks are intact to the point you can walk their decks, swing their tillers, and watch the rudders turn. The July 2007 project marked the beginning of detailed documentation in the Yukon. In the first phase, an INA team and EPICSCAN (regon) staff spent five days at Shipyard Island, 60 km from the nearest road, and LIDAR-surveyed the 39.6 m 1908 wooden-hulled sternwheeler Evelyn. The result was a data "cloud" of millions of highly accurate survey shots inside and outside of the vessel, such that features down to 3 mm in width were recorded. The 3-D model shows all timbers and planking, and can be cross-sectioned as required.
Using LIDAR, INA researchers were able to obtain more than 160 million data points on the 1908 sternwheeler Evelyn. (C. Valasquez)
Scanners were set up on remote Shipyard Island, 60 miles from the nearest road. (J. Pollack, July 2007)
The ghostly image of this Klondike riverboat reveals its many secrets. (C. Valasquez)
