The Old Ways: Preserving Seattle’s Maritime Heritage

Photos by Alice Bourget

The Swiftsure’s amazing engine room illustration.

The earth’s waters are magnetic. No, not in the technical sense, but deeply in the emotional sense. The waters have pulled people for thousands of years, to travel, explore, fish and simply to gaze at their expanse, to connect with the currents of time.

At the Northwest Seaport Maritime Heritage Center in Seattle, they think a lot about the ships that have plied the sea, and about the boundaries of time—the Center is restoring and preserving three vessels that are each over 100 years old. That work is greatly dependent on volunteers and it’s a painstaking process, but one resonant with a broader meaning.

Andy Bennett, President of the Northwest Seaport Board of Directors, knows well the reciprocal benefits of that volunteer program. “We preserve the maritime heritage of Puget Sound and use our historic vessels as platforms to help people, particularly young people, learn about maritime career opportunities and get the basic training they need to get started,” he says. Also being the web manager, IT manager, industry-outreach manager and social media manager of the organization, Bennett exemplifies the all-hands-on-deck nature of the program.

The Swiftsure on the San Francisco Station.

Photo&colon; Northwest Seaport Maritime Heritage Center

The Heritage Center has 10 to 15 regular volunteers for requested maintenance days, and perhaps three or four who come irregularly. There’s plenty to do and learn: “The training we are working on with The Deep Sea Fisherman’s Union involves all three ships—the engine on the tugboat Arthur Foss, with its wonderfully gigantic diesel engine, classroom space on the lightship Swiftsure and various electrical and other types of lessons available using the fishing ship Tordenskjold,” says Colleen Browne, board member and volunteer.

Browne worked for the city of Seattle in the engineering and then parks department in the ‘90s, and became involved in restoring the nearby earthquake-damaged historic ships wharf with help from a private grant in the early 2000s. She noted that the nearby Northwest Seaport organization was so strapped they were running taped extension cords a long distance to grab electricity to power their gift shop.

The volunteers kept things afloat. “They were so dedicated, and so knowledgeable about the ships and the history, and so into authenticity,” Browne says. “They were bound and determined to make this work.” Dedication begets dedication: Browne became a volunteer and board member of Northwest Seaport in 2009 and has applied her skills ever since.

Browne’s skills include no small familiarity with and affection for wooden boats, spurred from the age of four or five by fishing from her grandfather’s boat in Tacoma’s Commencement Bay. Having 40 or so cousins in the Tacoma area acclimated her to social gatherings, a big help with her coordination of Happy Hour public events on the 1889-built Arthur Foss, where she grills salmon for 40 attendees. She also arranges sleepovers of children’s groups in the tugboat’s snug bunks.

“I’m best in events,” Browne says. “I’d been doing that kind of stuff when I was at work. And to me, I have this enormous family here. So if you say, ‘I need a party for 40 tomorrow,’ I can do it—it’s an easy thing.” She notes the Heritage Center does all the events sustainably: “We have real silverware and real glasses; everything’s reusable. And we do compost.”

Some of the boats at the center might have become compost themselves were it not for the concerted efforts of the volunteers—and their patience: The Heritage Center is replacing the decking of the 129-foot 1904 Lightship No. 83 (badged the Swiftsure), and they have gone old school, sourcing old-growth fir and are air-drying it rather than kiln-drying, a process that takes a lot more time.

Launched in 1889, Arthur Foss is America’s oldest wooden tugboat

Volunteer and board member Shannon Fitzgerald has a remarkably deep history with ships: two separate stints with NOAA Fisheries working as a tuna/porpoise observer, and at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, contracted by the International Whaling Commission for whale research. He’s spent time in Alaskan waters on a Chinese mothership, as a research biologist on a Taiwanese vessel and as an observer for the High Seas Driftnet Program. And those are just the general outlines of his career making waves on the water. Not bad for a kid who used to barter bait frogs back in his native Minnesota to borrow a family friend’s boat to go fishing. As he says, “I’d been using a tiller long before I got behind a car wheel.”

Fitzgerald has been involved with the Heritage organization on and off since 1993, and since 2003 has been above- and belowdecks with many projects. “I got way more involved running work parties, boat hosting and then was invited to join the board,” he says. “I do a little bit of everything: I try to be the one focusing on keeping things going on the vessels with cleanup, and I write grants.”

The deck helm station of the Arthur Foss.

Managing much of the Swiftsure restoration process, Fitzgerald coordinates volunteer workdays, arranges for professional contractors and gets his own hands dirty. “I probably am the board member with the most involvement in the lightship, but everything’s a group effort,” he says. “We need a community to keep these ships going. Our community starts with the board and then it reaches out to volunteers.”

For contracting work, Fitzgerald works with marine repair specialists and shipwrights for the jobs that need a professional hand, and gets some handshakes back from those ends: “We hire them to do projects, and they sometimes give us a rate below the market value, or donate extra hours beyond what they get paid,” he says.
“So, the community keeps growing out from there.”

The work parties differ according to the boat, the number of volunteers (which can include visitors to the Lake Union port complex who volunteer on the spot) and the tasks at hand, which sometimes require a high-level volunteer with specific skills. “We do assigned tasks,” Fitzgerald says. “And a lot of that is basic cleaning. And then there are things that we reserve only for experienced shipwrights; laying the lightship deck is a shipwright-level thing, and what’s called corking the deck or caulking the deck is a shipwright’s work.”

Work parties are promoted on the website, by word of mouth and through collaboration with the nearby Center for Wooden Boats, which gets steady boat-curious visitors. The Lake Union setting is a busy place, with its buzzing seaplane port and the adjacent Museum of History and Industry. The Heritage Center also collaborates with the Youth Maritime Training Association and the Inbreaker Apprenticeship Program to bring young folks into contact with maritime history, education and hands-on work. They also have a Boat Host program, a sort of docent program where an informed member of the public can open up the boats for tours and a bit of history education.

NW Seaport volunteers Shannon Fitzgerald and Colleen Browne.

Fitzgerald knows that curiosity can translate to action with the Heritage Center. “There’s the attraction of these historic ships and what they represent,” he says. “They’re cool and unique, and on board or even dockside, like with the Arthur Foss or the lightship, you’re transferred into a different world. But these are platforms of service to the broader community. If you have a sense of ‘I want to provide a service,’ you’re helping us do that by volunteering on the boat. Because a good volunteer force is really important in historic ship preservation and restoration work. The love of the sea draws me to these vessels, but I also see what they can do as platforms of service to the community.”

Colleen Browne recognizes the resonant value of the Heritage Center’s outreach: “The history of Seattle is based in maritime history, and it’s really huge, and it’s rewarding when people discover us,” she says. “Seattle history is this history: It’s all conjoined together. Once you can connect with your past, you’ve become part of the city. You feel like you’re a Seattleite—then you start growing your roots when you see the roots of this project, and you can relate to them.”

The Northwest Seaport Maritime Heritage Center won’t need to fire up the original whale-oil beacons on the Swiftsure, because they are illumined by the sunshine of people working together with common goals and uncommon dedication. They don’t need to tape a bunch of extension cords together anymore to get power. They get their power from cooperation and community. Come by and check them out. You might just want to test your pipes out at the monthly sea chantey sing, or strap on a toolbelt for an extended stay belowdecks. Everyone’s welcome.