Klondike-era steamboat found in Yukon lake

Archeologists have found a mostly preserved steamboat from the Klondike Gold Rush era on the bottom of Lake Laberge in the Yukon.

The exact location of the 108-year-old sternwheeler A.J. Goddard had been a mystery since Oct. 22, 1901, when it vanished in Lake Laberge during a winter storm. Two members of the five-man crew survived, while the other three drowned.

The ship was built in San Francisco in 1897 and shipped in pieces to Skagway, Alaska. It was then hauled inland through British Columbia and assembled at Bennett, B.C. The steamboat hauled gold miners and supplies into the Yukon's Klondike region until it disappeared.

An international archeological team was amazed last summer when the untouched shipwreck — complete with tools, dishes, and even charred wood in the ship's firebox — was located.

"Picture a boat just sitting upright on the lake bottom. It's not buried or damaged significantly," team member Doug Davidge, president of the Yukon Transportation Museum, told CBC News in an interview Tuesday.

"It has a small paddlewheel at the back end or in the stern, and the hull was completely intact and all those materials that were on the boat are lying either on the deck or nearby."

Davidge said the steamboat's wheelhouse is missing, but the archeological team does not know if it had washed up on shore or if it's in another part of the lake.

Shipwreck survey

Another team member, James Delgado of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology in Texas, recalled seeing many of the crew members' tools and clothes at the wreck site.

"There was a blacksmith's forge with tongs, tools spilled out along the deck and on the bottom, an anvil, and where one man had obviously struggled to get free, his coat and boots [were] lying right there on the deck," Delgado said.

"Everything you saw clearly indicated that this shipwreck is a time capsule from the Gold Rush."

The archeological team, which includes members of Delgado's institute, the transportation museum and the Yukon government, has been combing the territory's lakes and rivers for Gold Rush-era shipwrecks since 2005.

The team has documented dozens of broken and abandoned steamboats over the years, but they say the A.J. Goddard is the first discovery that is not damaged.

Davidge first spotted the wreck during a sonar survey of Lake Laberge in 2008. He confirmed it was the A.J. Goddard when he revisited the lake later that year.

"I went back in July with an underwater camera, just a drop camera, to verify the target," Davidge said.

"I did that on my own and [was] not sure of what it was. But as soon as I got the camera to the lake bottom, I was very confident that's what it was."

Davidge said he believes the cold water of Lake Laberge may have preserved parts of the ship, but he also noted that there is little activity in the area where the sternwheeler was found.

"Mostly I think it's because few people venture down to that part of the lake, and when they do they're just passing through usually and they don't spend any time there," he said.

The team plans to return to the shipwreck next year.