Pacific Spellbinder

Simon Bancroft (British Columbia Nautical History Facebook Group 12/03/2017) states that I remember seeing her at the Vancouver Maritime museum docks in the late 1980s but knew nothing of her story till a friend told me recently. This vessel was built by Valkyrie Outfitters who were a group of draft dodgers who had formed a commune in northern BC with a goal of helping underprivileged kids.

They settled on boats as one of their venues.

They connected with Kris Frostad and learned wooden boatbuilding at his yard. The yard was very busy with glass seine boats at the time and I inadvertently saw the Outfit's boat when I visited with Jeff Harris from CSI who was much taken with the wooden boat project and the energetic builders. The boat they produced was a seine boat style yacht called Vagabound. Their next project was Pacific Spellbinder, a Frank Fredette schooner that they built in a barn on Barnston Island with Kris acting as consultant/overseer. Unfortunately they had overextended themselves financially and my friend showed me copies of some of their partnership and shareholding proposals. Sadly the only relief was sale of the boat. This vessel went south and that is all I know.``