Elvira (I)

At Dutch Harbour TA the US Government had seized a number of Japanese sealing schooners which were sold at auction. Shroder had purchased one of them which he named Elvira. Pedersen took her sea otter hunting in 1910. Shroder travelled with them and they carried a crew of 28 Aleut hunters each summer. The Government halted the sea otter hunt in the summer of 1911 but the owners had already quit that hunt. Pedersen sailed the Elvira down to San Francisco in the Fall of 1910, after landing the hunters at their homes, for a cargo of salt and barrels in order to start a salmon fishing station. The whalebone market was improving so Pedersen talked Shroder into whaling up in the Arctic. The Elvira was a husky schooner with a very blunt bow and a perpedicular stem. Pedersen felt this vesselneeded at least a 100hp engine to drive her but Schroder felt this vessel would burn too much gasoline so settled on a 75hp engine.

They experienced an almost ice-free summer in 1912 and caught 12 Bowhead whales.

They thought they had made a lot of money but during the voyage the price of baleen had dropped from $2.50 per pound to 75¢ at which price they had to sell. This vessel was owned by Stabens and Friedman of San Francisco, CA USA.

In 1913 this vessel was crushed in the ice at Herschel Island YT while under command of Captain C. T. Pedersen.