The cargo ship “S.S. Tatjana” was shipwrecked in the Barkley Sound in 1924.
Photos and negatives of the event, which can be found on the Alberni Valley Museum’s online photo archive, came from the personal possessions of Susan Watson and her father George Augustus Bellamy.
The vessel was a Norwegian cargo freighter which was stranded on Effingham Island in the Barkley Sound in February 1924. It was in ballast from Murran, Japan to Vancouver to load lumber, when it missed the Strait of Juan de Fuca in bad weather and ran aground. The freighter’s bow hit a rock cleft, its stern sank and its prop was broken off on the rocks. The Bamfield Lifeboat rescued the crew off the rocks.
After several months, the freighter was refloated and rebuilt as the “S.S. Dramensfjord” in 1925. The “Tatjana” was originally built in 1920 in Montreal for Winge & Co. She was 400 feet long, 52 feet wide, 28 feet deep and displaced 5,329 tons.