Aleutian Native

On April 28, 1939 the tug Ella McKenzie, owned by McKenzie Barge & Derrick Co., Vancouver BC, sank after a collision with the American tanker Aleutian Native, under the command of Captain Samuel B. Wellington, west of the Burrard Street Bridge in Vancouver Harbour. The tug heeled over after the collision and the tanker threw lines to her to arrest the capsize. Despite this this vessel sank with only the top of her mast showing above the water to mark her resting place. Captain A. Jorgenson and the mate, Les McIntosh, escaped in the dump scow they had been pushing. The Engineer, Howard W. Randall, was knocked overboard by the impact.

He was caught under the hull of the tanker and narrowly missed being cut up in her propeller. George Schneider (Sept 2026) Writes: There's disagreement on who "built" this boat. Her documents show her as built at Portland, OR, and the American Bureau of Shipping say she was built by Joseph Supple, a known builder in Portland. Other sources list her builder as Smith & Watson Iron Works (not recorded for building any other vessels) and Theodore Knudsen (not recorded as a builder at all.) To complicate things, Tim Colton's Shipbuilding History shows a vessel of this name built by Johnson Boiler Works in Ferrysburg MI. As with most conflicts of information, each name may have a reasonable connection to her.

In 2022 she was still registered as a fishing tender but was seen with auxiliary sails. On 26 Sept. 2026 Kyle Stubbs wrote: As to the builder "confusion" you noted, I turned to the Oregon Newspaper Archives and found a substantial article (attached) about her in the Oregon Daily Journal from January 21, 1913. To sum it up, the builder performing the work was Smith and Watson Iron Works, which was working on site at the Supple boatyard. However, the raw materials for the hull were supplied to Smith and Watson by Johnson Bros of Ferrysburg, MI, hence that connection, which would have a rightful place in the Colton list. Smith and Watson was the outright builder of her machinery and the firefighting equipment, though.