A8
THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, JUNE 29, 2021
Mystery boat: Original use diffi cult to tell
Continued from Page A1
Astoria, happened on the
wreck several years ago
when he was out at Trestle
Bay with his family.
“We found it but I had
never heard anything about
it,” he said. “There’s hun-
dreds of those, but they’re
all underwater.”
Second, the boat is likely
not a Columbia River gill-
netter, a type of commercial
fi shing boat that was once
common on the river and
used in salmon fi sheries.
Modern versions can still be
seen working in Youngs Bay
and up Youngs River.
The boat appears to be
built heavier than a typi-
cal wooden gillnetting boat,
Schacher observed. The
early gillnetters had been
built for speed and the ability
to operate in shallow waters.
Maybe this heavier wreck
was built for some kind of
industrial use, he thought.
But, he added, “there
were a lot of one-off boats
built for very specifi c things,
God only knows.”
Hailey Hoff man/The Astorian
The boat is only accessible at low tide.
Another look
Last week, after hearing
about Trotter’s experience,
Schacher decided to take
another look . He walked out
at low tide with Jon Norgaard
on the phone. Norgaard oper-
ates the website “Historic
Fishing,” where he main-
tains an archive of photos of
the West Coast fi shing indus-
try. Schacher considers Nor-
gaard “one of the best local
resources left on everything
Astoria, especially fi shing.”
Together, they evaluated
the boat remnants.
The boat, or what remains
of it, is over 30 feet long —
an unusual length for a stan-
dard Columbia River gill-
netter. At the same time, it
appears that concrete was
poured in one area, possi-
bly to act as ballast. There
is a large bronze bolt on the
starboard side that may have
been used to support a crab
davit, a piece of equipment
used to pull crab pots from
the water.
This last feature was
not unusual as some gill-
netter boats pulled double
duty, with fi shermen shift-
ing to crabbing in the winter
to supplement their income,
Schacher said.
With only a small portion
of the boat preserved, it is
diffi cult to tell what its origi-
nal use was.
“My guess is that it had
multiple uses over its life-
time and fell into disrepair
and was abandoned at a dock
and fl oated downriver to its
fi nal resting place in Trestle
Bay,” Schacher said.
Perhaps, he added, the
partial removal of jetty
stones in past years and
the movement of sediment
helped uncover it .
When he happened on
the boat years ago, Schacher
had notifi ed the Mari-
time Archaeological Soci-
‘IT PROBABLY WILL ONLY BE
RECOGNIZABLE FOR A FEW
MORE YEARS BEFORE THE
STORMS AND SEA GROWTH
FINISH CONSUMING IT.’
Mark Schacher | operator of
Arrow Tugboat and Tour Co. out of Astoria
ety, a local volunteer-based
group that investigates ship-
wrecks in the Pacifi c North-
west. Trotter, who has had
past experience in archaeo-
logical work, hopes he can
be involved in any future
research and documentation
of the boat.
But the society is unlikely
to launch its own investiga-
tion any time soon.
They are already gear-
ing up for summer work
on another wreck, The
Stranger, a sternwheeler that
worked with another ship to
take passengers and freight
between Salem and Vancou-
ver in Washington state and
that, according to local rec-
ollections, was tied up to be
dismantled on the shores of
Youngs Bay.
Costly
Boat investigations and
removals eat up time and
can quickly become costly.
“Nobody has the money
to spend on wrecks that
aren’t really signifi cant,”
Chris Dewey, the president
of the society, said. Though
he admits the question of
signifi cance is an open one.
There is the signifi cance
and mystique of wrecks
like the Peter Iredale farther
south on the beach side of
Fort Stevens or the fabled
Beeswax wreck in Oswald
West State Park, or the esti-
mated 2,000 other wrecks
in the infamous Graveyard
of the Pacifi c that stretches
from roughly Tillamook
Bay to Vancouver Island.
Then there is the signif-
icance of old but less dra-
matic vessels like the aban-
doned fi shing boats and
industry vessels so common
around Youngs Bay. They
tell the story of the region
and reveal details about
the people who lived and
worked here, Dewey said.
But, in the meantime,
the society, with its lim-
ited resources and long list
of abandoned and wrecked
vessels to explore, has to
pick its battles.
The wooden boat in
Trestle Bay has been there
for years. It doesn’t seem to
be going anywhere. Dewey
isn’t even sure how feasi-
ble it would be to remove it
from the bay.
Because of the bay’s
location and the fact that
the boat is sitting almost
right in the middle , acces-
sible only at low tide
and without easy vehicle
access, removing the boat
could cost thousands and
thousands of dollars, he
estimates.
To even go out and
begin documenting it in an
offi cial capacity means the
society’s members would
need a permit from state
parks.
“Now, the permits are
not too diffi cult to get nor-
mally, but since the (coro-
navirus) pandemic every-
thing is slow,” Dewey said.
Slow on the state’s side
of things, as well as for the
society’s volunteer mem-
bers who, in some cases,
have had more pressing per-
sonal concerns to address
throughout the pandemic
than vessel wreck research.
So for now, Dewey said,
the Trestle Bay boat is
“kind of one of the things
where, yeah, we’ll get to it
someday.”
Schacher is inclined to
agree with Dewey. The
boat will likely stay put for
now. But he hopes they will
get out soon to do some
basic documentation.
“The wreck has weath-
ered considerably since I
last looked at it a few years
ago,” he told The Asto-
rian. “So I’m guessing it
hasn’t been exposed until
recently.
“It probably will only
be recognizable for a few
more years before the
storms and sea growth fi n-
ish consuming it.”
Davis: ‘I’m supposed to build communities and be with veterans’
Continued from Page A1
Davis said his goal is to
teach caseworkers at the
agency about his role so they
know to refer veterans who
may be eligible for benefi ts.
He said that while his role is
to help veterans obtain ben-
efi ts, that is only part of the
job. He wants to help create
a more supportive commu-
nity for veterans.
“And the VA (U.S.
Department of Veterans
Aff airs), as innovative as it
tries to be, it’s still the VA
and it’s clinical,” Davis said.
“And it’s sterile and there’s
not as much warmth there.
So a lot of what we are see-
ing in the community is vet-
erans are not, and their fam-
ilies are not, engaging in VA
services. It’s not that there’s
a lack of services. The ser-
vices are there, but they’re
not engaging and they’re not
engaging in these services
for a reason.
“As much as they have
tried to augment diff erent
types of things, the frame-
work is still there. They have
not changed the framework
and they’ve not changed the
culture enough to really, truly
serve veterans and particu-
larly vulnerable veterans.”
Davis, who grew up in
Columbia County and was
deployed three times, said
the North Coast is where he
convalesced after returning
from Iraq in 2005.
He began working as an
advocate for veterans about
eight years ago while he was
attending Lower Colum-
bia College in Longview,
Washington.
“I knew that I wanted to
do something that had to do
with community building or
community development or
care, but I didn’t know what
yet,” Davis said. “And so I
was working on my trans-
fer degree and I was always
at the veterans information
window at the registrar’s
offi ce and there was always
some kind of problem, like
my pay was wrong or it was
late or I got dropped from a
class because the university
didn’t receive payment from
the VA, but they know that
it’s coming. And there was
always constantly an issue.”
Other veterans were hav-
ing similar problems, and
Davis found that part of
the problem was that the
information counter was
short-staff ed.
He began working at
the information counter.
He learned the system and
helped create a framework
to make it easier for veterans
to get the information they
needed. Over the next cou-
ple of years, he took on more
responsibility and became
president of the student vet-
erans club.
While receiving his
degree in social work from
Portland State University,
Davis began working with
veterans in Multnomah
County and then became the
county’s veterans service
offi cer.
“All of a sudden ... the
fi re started burning, and I
was like, ‘OK, this is what
I’m supposed to do,’” Davis
said. “I’m supposed to build
communities and be with
veterans.”
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