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The Sinking of the Good Ship Dora

Unloading horses from S.S. Dora with a sling at Valdez, Alaska. Alaska State Library, P. S. Hunt Collection (Photographer P. S. Hunt), ASL-P192-07.

Unloading horses from S.S. Dora with a sling at Valdez, Alaska. Alaska State Library, P. S. Hunt Collection (Photographer P. S. Hunt), ASL-P192-07.

Join us online for a virtual Cook Inlet Historical Society lecture.

Free.

Advance registration is required to receive the link. Please register directly on the Anchorage Museum website by following this link: Register Here

Speaker:  J. Pennelope Goforth (hosted by Dick Mylius)

View a recording of this event here.
Password: CookInlet618


The staunch little steamer Dora served in Alaskan waters her entire career: delivering the mail, transporting food and goods from Southeast Alaskan ports all the way to Bristol Bay and rescuing hundreds lost at sea. Sold into the cod fishery she made her last voyage to Alaska with a green crew when tragedy struck in the winter of 1920. This talk will be a celebration of her life and a commemoration of her tragic sinking one hundred years ago. This is the third talk in the Cook Inlet Historical Society’s 2020-2021 Speaker Series, “Disasters.”

J. Pennelope Goforth has been a member of coastal historical societies for many years researching and writing about Alaska history. She has been a member of the Historic Canneries Preservation Initiative and served as editor of the Alaska Historical Society’s cannery blog, and as guest editor for the Puget Sound Historical Maritime Society’s widely-regarded journal, The Sea Chest. She curated and created an online portal for the Port of Alaska’s historic scrapbooks. She is the author of Sailing the Mail in Alaska and has a maritime research website, www.seacatexplorations.com.