Mosquito Fleet #2: Olympian Traditional Cache

Welcome to the Mosquito fleet #2: Olympian cache.

Olympian was built in 1883, at Wilmington, Delaware. She was a sidewheeler driven by a single cylinder vertical condensing walking-beam steam engine, which gave her high speed. Her iron hull was 262 feet (80 m) long, 73' in beam over the paddle guards, and rated at 1419 tons. She was built primarily for service on Puget Sound, as her draft of 8' feet meant she needed too much water to be of much use on most of the Columbia other than the lower river from Portland to Astoria.

In 1884, Olympian was brought to the Pacific Northwest through the Straits of Magellan, all the way around South America; the Panama Canal would not be built for another 30 years. Olympian was built according to designs which had been popular and successful on Chesapeake Bay. When she arrived in the Pacific Northwest, these designs proved unsuited for the conditions, and the ship became a steady money-loser.

On arrival in 1884, Olympian was placed in service by the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company (then controlled by Henry Villard) on the Seattle-Victoria run that had previously been served by North Pacific. Olympian served on this route until 1886 when she was transferred to the Columbia River. There is a story that on one of the runs from Victoria to Port Townsend, five Chinese men seeking to enter the United States (apparently at a time when entry of Chinese nationals was barred by the Chinese Exclusion Act hid within the paddle guards. Fortunately they survived (only to be deported back to Canada) although they were nearly drowned by the amount of water picked up by the paddle buckets.

Olympian ran for a while on the Columbia River mostly on the Columbia to Astoria run. Mostly she was unsuccessful, being too expensive and not much faster than her rivals, typically the crack sidewheeler T.J. Potter or Captain U.B. Scott’s express sternwheeler Telephone. In January 1886, a severe snowstorm stranded passenger trains in the Columbia Gorge and also froze the Columbia River. Relief trains could not reach the stranded passengers and wooden-hulled steamboats could not navigate the ice-choked river. Olympian however had an iron hull, and was used to smash through the ice and rescue the passengers. However, because she was too expensive to run, as soon as the ice cleared, the wooden steamboats took over from her.

Unable to make money on either the Seattle-Victoria run or on the Columbia River, in 1887 the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company chartered Olympian out to be run on the Inside Passage through coastal British Columbia and southeast Alaska. Olympian did not do well on this route either, being too lightly built for its conditions, considerably more challenging than Chesapeake Bay for which she was designed and best fitted.

In 1887, the same year that she’d been sent to Alaska, Olympian was brought back to the Seattle-Victoria route, where she stayed on the run until about 1890.

In about 1890, unable to find a west coast route on which she could make any money, Olympian was laid up in Portland where she remained for many years. Finally, sixteen years later, an effort was made to return her to the East Coast whence she’d came, in an effort to finally get her to turn a profit. Olympian never made it back, for on March 13, 1906, she was wrecked at Possession Bay in South America after passing through the Straits of Magellan under tow by the steamship Zealandia.

T he cache.

Most of the way to the cache is on logging roads or dirt paths. The last 20-100 feet are off trail. There are some moderate elevation changes, up to 400 feet. The forest floor can be mushy and soft. There is no serious bush wacking needed. Expect poor GPS reception under the tree cover, the caches are not cleverly hidden but are camo painted and not visible from the path. It has been rumored that giant mutant banana slugs live in the this area. An attack by one of these creatures is a very slimy affair. Fortunately a brisk walk will allow you to escape.