Norwegian Memorial - Crew of the bark Prince Arthur which foundered January 2, 1903

This monument commemorates the Prince Arthur, which ran aground during a storm at 1 a.m. on Jan. 3, 1903. The Prince Arthur was commanded by an experienced captain from Larvik, Norway, named Hans Markussen. Besides the captain, the ship had a crew of 19, including four teenage apprentice seamen. The ship was approaching Puget Sound off the Olympic Peninsula when it ran into a heavy mist accompanied by extremely turbulent seas. Steering the ship by dead reckoning, the crew mistakenly came too close to the shore and after seeing a light straight ahead they quickly turned around and soon hit the rocks of the reefs that litter those waters off Washington. The crew managed to get the ship free from the first two rocks, but it landed hard on a third and was stuck fast. Huge waves driven by howling winds swept over the ship from the stern to the raised bow, which was impaled on the rock. The crew were all wearing their life vests over their oilskins, except the captain, who gave his to one of the apprentices. Eventually, the relentless waves pounded the ship so hard that it broke in two. At this point, many of the crew members tied themselves to the ship with ropes, but eventually, one by one they were swallowed by the churning sea. Only two of the crew survived: the second mate, Christopher Schjodt Hansen, a Norwegian, and the sailmaker and carpenter, Knud Larsen, a Dane. Both ended up thrown up on the beach, exhausted and bruised, after harrowing swims through huge waves and crashing surf. They eventually found each other and headed down the beach toward the south, looking desperately for Native Americans who might help them. Along the way, the two men found 12 of their dead shipmates and hauled their bodies from the shore to the safety of higher ground. After walking a while, they saw smoke coming from a seaside cabin and were greeted on the beach by none other than a Norwegian settler, Iver J. Birkestol, a member of the largely Scandinavian homestead community of Lake Ozette (see “Lake Ozette, Wash.: The Scandinavian immigrants last frontier in the West,” The Norwegian American, Feb. 4, 2022). Full of Norwegian hospitality, Birkestol took them in, fed them, gave them dry clothes, and made them comfortable. After recuperating, Hansen and Larsen were joined by Iver Birkestol and his brothers and a few local Makah Indians in burying their dead shipmates in shallow graves. The Norwegian memorial was erected by the Norse Club in 1904 over the common grave of the deceased sailors from the Prince Arthur.