Stories of Early Pioneers in Alaska

The shop Bert built beside the McIlravie Building on Ketchikan's Main Street in 1916 for his general contracting business. Photo was taken in 1936 to use as Christmas card.

The eleven-room Yes Bay cannery house being towed to Ketchikan, forty miles by water, behind Bert's converted halibut boat, the Clara D. As late as the mid-fifties, Bert's ability to move buildings from remote areas, transport them to Ketchikan, and place them intact on new foundations was well-known in the area. 1930.

Construction in progress on the Industrial School complex at Shoemaker Bay, for which Bert and the Anderson and Hatton company won a joint bid. 1931.

Bert and his dog Patsy duck hunting in Southeast Alaska with Bert's boat, the Clara D. 1936.

Blue Jay Mine site on the Cleveland Peninsula, showing the upper part of the tramway with tram car, unfinished assay house, cook house with scaffolding, roof of bunkhouse, and Helm Bay below. Construction would soon start on the mill building at the top of the tramway, a four-level structure, tiered up the mountainside toward the mine portal. Photo was taken from below the mill building site, which was eighteen hundred feet up the mountain from the beach. 1939.

Blue Jay Mine's floating dock near the head of Helm Bay with the Clara D and smaller boat tied in front and Dr. Myer's boat in back, and Ernie Stears arriving with visitors on his tug, The Chief. The dock was also used by larger vessels to offload supplies, such as oil tanker delivery and the Northland delivery of equipment from California for the mill building. Photo was taken from near the warehouse on the beach; the rope extends out to a grid that was built nearby at the low tide area and floated at high tide to accommodate scow loads of building materials from the Ketchikan Spruce Mill. 1939.