Description of Historic Place

The Dora shipwreck site contains the remains of a wooden-hulled 33.6 m-long passenger steamer that lies near the mouth of Songhees Creek between Port Hardy and Cape Scott, British Columbia, in about 9 m of water on a sand bottom. The wreck site is approximately 28 m long by 20 m wide, with the wreck oriented roughly parallel to the Vancouver Island shoreline and the bow pointing towards Port Hardy.

British Columbia's Heritage Conservation Act automatically protects all heritage wrecks, including the remains of all wrecked vessels and aircraft once two or more years have passed since the date of loss. It is illegal to damage, alter or remove a heritage object from a heritage wreck except under a permit issued by the Archaeology Branch.

Heritage Value

The Dora has historic, scientific and aesthetic value for its role in coastal trade, its technological features and its attractiveness as a dive site.

The Dora has historic value as it typifies the trade and transportation vessels of the West Coast that travelled between San Francisco, Seattle and Alaska through the inside passages of the British Columbia coast. The ship was built for the Alaska Commercial Company at San Francisco in 1880 and was active in the 1898 Klondike Gold Rush. The Dora carried general merchandise and trade goods north and returned with furs, whale bone and salted salmon. The owners had staterooms added to the main deck and as many bunks as possible were crammed into the main hold to ferry miners north to the gold fields. In December 1905, the main steam pipe broke in heavy weather, setting the _Dora_ adrift for 63 days in the North Pacific. The ship was given up for lost when it was sighted under jury-rigged sail off the Strait of Juan de Fuca and towed to Port Angeles, all food and water virtually gone. The ship sank on December 20, 1920, after striking a reef during a routine voyage to Alaska.

The Dora has scientific value as representative of vessels constructed in the transition period between sail and steam power. It was still equipped with sails in the event of engine failure. The artifacts of the Dora at the wreck site demonstrate the application of steam power to drive the vessel and to power the windlasses and a steam dynamo to generate electricity.

The wreck site has aesthetic value as an attractive and easily accessible recreational dive site with abundant marine life.

Character-Defining Elements

The character-defining elements of the Dora shipwreck include:

- the compound steam engine with intact crankshaft
- the large single furnace fire-tube boiler
- the short propeller shaft with clutch assembly
- the single cylinder, steam-driven dynamo armature with copper coils
- the steam-driven windlass with uptake drum and warping drum
- the anchor chain emerging from the sand
- the debris field of coal and numerous small objects such as valves, pipes and scuppers protruding from the sand and covered with plumose anemones and orange sea pens