For half a century up until last year, the schooner Wawona was moored on Lake Union in Seattle as a museum ship. Built in 1897, the ship served as a lumber schooner on the West coast and around the world, and as a fishing schooner in the dory-and-mothership cod fishery in the North Pacific.
Last year, Northwest Seaport, the preservation organization which owned the vessel, determined that it was no longer safe for visitors and that restoration was impracticable. NWS undertook a painstaking documentation, so thorough and groundbreaking that it is now being taught as a case-study in East Carolina University’s Marine Archaeology program. Once this documentation was completed, the ship was broken up by the Lake Union Dry Dock Company. [Seattle Post-Intelligencer coverage]
To further assure that the vessel’s history will be preserved, many pieces of it were saved. Since Northwest Seaport does not operate a campus or curate land-based exhibits, these artifacts will be distributed to other Museums and preservation organizations. The Wawona Artifact Distribution project is expected to take from now until at least June of 2010. I have been engaged by Northwest Seaport to undertake the management of this project.
See also:
Wawona’s sister ship, Thayer, restored and on display at San Francisco Maritime National Park: www.nps.gov/safr/historyculture/ca-thayer-history.htm
