Cash,
There is a bay near the northern tip of Vancouver Island called San Josef Bay. I met somebody a couple of years ago who had worked in a logging camp not far from the Bay in the 1950s, who said that he had gone there once with a friend and found a bronze cannon sticking out of the sand. They could not dig it out because the sand kept backfilling the hole, and in any case, they would not have been able to move or transport it. He got moved to another camp shortly afterwards, so never went back. He had earlier met a US recluse called Earl Lincoln, who had lived in a small cabin in the area for many years. On the wall of Earl's room was a metal breastplate, which he said he had found in a cave just North of the Bay. Earl said that the cave had a pit in its floor, in which there were a number of headless skeletons, with full body armor, including breastplates, and arm and leg guards. He had fished the one breastplate out. He drew a map showing the location of the cave for my informant, but this map had been lost when he and his wife split up.
I have checked on Earl Lincoln, and he did exist. I have photographs of hm and other information.One of his diaries is in the Port Hardy museum, but it contains nothing related to this story. After he died, his cabin was left to ruin and finally burned down. I have a map showing its location. I have not been able to find any record of the breastplate, and although I have spoken to other people who had visited his home,none of them remember a breastplate on the wall.
Although the story of the headless skeletons sounds bizarre, we do know that the Indians on the west coast of Vancouver Island did behead captives, both from neighboring nations and white visitors. I forget the name of the boat, but Chief Maquina from Nootka Sound once captured a trading ship, about 1800, and beheaded all but two of the crew. One of these was the blacksmith called Jarrett, and he later wrote an account of the two years he spent as a slave of the tribe. Maquina laid all of the heads on the ship's deck so that Jarrett could identify them and tell him if any other crew members were missing. Also, there is some folklore among the Kwakwakawakwa Indians who used to occupy the northern area of the Island about a rattle used in ceremonial dances that was made from a European helmet containing a skull, with a handgrip consisting of another bone that went through holes drilled through both sides of the skull and helmet. About a hundred years ago, anthropologists from the Smithsonian found three skulls in a cave just south of San Josef Bay. After examination, they were declared to be Chinese. They are somewhere in the Smithsonian collection. There might, or might not, be a connection between these skulls and the headless, armored skeletons. There is the wreck of a schooner in San Josef bay, but it will not be connected with the supposed bronze cannon, because it only wrecked there about 1920. I cannot remember its name off the top of my head.
Another place in BC where there is almost definitely some kind of wreck is at the north end of the Queen Charlotte Islands, probably in the region of Parry Passage, which runs between the northern island and Langara Island. There are stories among the Haida Indians of two early wrecks, and a couple of years ago, I was told that two guys from Prince Rupert had found two bronze cannons on land in that area, carrying dates of 1586 and 1587 plus the Spanish coat of arms. When I contacted the two guys, they absolutely denied it, but they would, wouldn't they, as Mandy Rice Davies once said. At the time, I thought that the guns could only have come from the San Antonio, a Manila Galleon that went missing in 1704, but I could not make any progress in finding further evidence, and got nowhere with the two guys, but all the indications are that the Haida were the first BC Nation to start using copper sheets, which might have come from an early-ish wreck.
I also know somebody who is convinced he has located two sunken ships containing gold at the far end of the Butte Inlet, which is north of Vancouver Island, but I know of no historic context for the story he tells about how they came to be there, and did not think his story worth pursuing. He was willing to share the wealth with somebody who had the equipment and was willing to try to recover the supposed wrecks, and I suppose I have his contact details somewhere. He lives on Vancouver Island.
A friend of mine also told me about information he had been given about another early wreck on the southeast of Vancouver Island, but he died without giving me the details, and there was no information among the papers he left to his daughter.
An interesting place, the British Columbia Coast.
Good luck with your plans to live there.
Mariner
?? thanks
not ship wreck. look on shore for evidance, like indian middens,if the spanish or who ever was anchored for long periods of time, the garbage is tossed over board.
Cash
