This documentary about the A. J. Goddard started in 2014 and directed by Jesse Davidge. Blatant Studio in Vancouver, BC, Canada completed the project in 2016. The people interviewed were Doug Davidge, Lindsey Thomas, Larry Bonnett, James Delgado, Donnie Reid, Tim Dowd and Val Monahan. This film covers the history of the ship, the sinking, and the work that went into the preservation of the artifacts found on research trips in 2008 and 2009.
Doug Davidge spent 19 years and a small fortune hunting for the sunken wreck of the A.J. Goddard, a Gold Rush-era sternwheeler. Despite many setbacks, he kept searching even though he came up short time after time. Follow the team as they recount the story of how the ship was discovered and what artifacts were found on the wreck site.
The A. J. Goddard was a Klondike Gold Rush era sternwheeler. Seattle businessman Albert J. Goddard owned the ship, thus the name. This sternwheeler was built for the transport of men and supplies on the Upper Yukon River in Canada.
After the Klondike gold rushes the A. J. Goddard was used in the towing business on Lake Laberge. In 1899 she was sold to the Canadian Development Company. After this sale, the A.J. Goddard’s service was confined between Whitehorse and the foot of the Thirty Mile River. On October 11, 1901, the A. J. Goddard sank during a storm on Lake Laberge with a large barge in tow. The little ship was blasted with freezing rain and snow and pounded by waves. She began to take on water, which extinguished the boiler fires and left the ship without power. She sank to the lake bottom only a few hundred metres from shore. Three of the crew drowned, while two were rescued by a local trapper in a rowboat.
