U.S. company granted salvage rights to ship believed to contain millions in B.C. gold

A Seattle-based company has been granted salvage rights to a ship containing piles of gold that sank near the B.C. coast in the 19th century.

The SS Pacific collided with another vessel shortly after it departed for a trip from Victoria to San Francisco in November of 1875 and was never seen again. Roughly 275 people, many of them gold miners, are believed to have died in the wreck.

Several unsuccessful attempts to locate and recover the boat have been made over the years, but Jeff Hummel, the president of Rockfish Incorporated, believes his team has done it.

"This is a childhood dream realized in adulthood, finding this particular vessel,” Hummel told CTV News.

Hummel says he began his pursuit of the boat in the '90s. In 2017, he formed a team in Seattle to track it down.

He says they embarked on 12 expeditions using a sonar and a towed camera sled.

Rockfish based its search off old records that showed the vessel went down southwest of Cape Flattery, as well as information from fishermen who found coal in their nets.

Hummel said the team obtained a piece of the coal and had it tested in a lab in Alberta. The results ended up matching the chemical analysis of coal from a mine owned by the owners of the SS Pacific.

“From that we were able to determine, it was from the wreck,” Hummel said.

Hummel says it was ultimately the sonar imaging equipment that zeroed in on the boat.

"We saw something that looked like the paddle wheels, and so once we identified those and we took some measurements on some of the other equipment I said, 'OK, this absolutely is the Pacific,” Hummel said.

Inside the boat is believed to be at least $5 million worth of gold, as well as many other valuable artifacts.

Last month, Rockfish was granted salvage rights to the ship in the United States District Court in Seattle.

However, anyone who can prove a family connection to an owner of the gold or any other item can come forward to attempt to claim it.

“It’s kind of like a process of probate,” said Hummel.

He says the team also wants to recover things like the steam machinery and paddles, which they believe are still intact.

"The state of preservation, I think, is going to be just really renowned with regards to this wreck,” he said.

Hummel, who’s also the director the not-for-profit Northwest Shipwreck Alliance, says he’d like to build a museum and hotel.

"We're just looking forward to telling about the ship and particularly about the lives of the people that were on board,” he said. “It was very important to Puget Sound, Canada and Victoria.”