Pacific Northwest | J R Hudson

Temporarily on the south end of Lake Union, in Seattle, Washington, the “San Mateo Ferry” awaited an uncertain fate. The year was 1987.

A Saturday in 1987 I had planned to attend a programming class to benefit my job at a computer firm. As I was near the location of the class, fog which had covered much of the city that morning was beginning to clear. The sun was beaming through holes in the fog and was lighting up the scene around me. I skipped the programming class to take pictures. This one of the San Mateo Ferry was a result of my effort that day.

Data: “San Mateo” is a steam-ship ferry. Official Number: 222386. Radio Call Letters: WG5465. Built: San Francisco, CA 1922. Length: 230′. Beam: 64′. Draft: 12′ Auto Deck Clearance: 11′ 6″ Speed: 13 knots. Horsepower: 1,400. Propulsion: triple expansion steam engine. Autos: 50 Passengers: 659. Gross Tonnage: 919.

Puget Sound History: In 1947 the San Mateo started on the Seattle-Suquamish route. In 1948 she was moved to the Kingston-Edmonds route for three months, then was placed on reserve. She saw regular service from late sping to early fall between 1952 and 1954 on the Fauntleroy-Vashon run. In 1955 she worked the Bremerton route from June until September. In 1956 she worked as an extra boat on the Kingston-Edmonds route, and then moved back to Fauntleroy-Vashon-Harper in 1957-58. In 1959 she moved back up to Edmonds as an “extra” where she remained until 1969, alternating between Edmonds and the Seattle-Winslow routes. The San Mateo made her final run from Edmonds to Kingston on Labor Day of 1969 and was packed to her limit.

During her time on the Sound the San Mateo Ferry was well-loved. People responded to the sound of her steam engines and whistle, the stained glass windows of her interior, the mahogany pew-like benches in her passenger cabin. Sadly, she now lists in shallow water on the bottom of the lower Frazer River in British Columbia and has decayed beyond reasonable recovery.

Information source (hear her whistle): www.evergreenfleet.com/mateo.html

A sad ending – Source: Silverdale Ferry Graveyard

A Ferry Dreams

I have another site that contains more than 500 photos from around the Pacific Northwest. You can find it here: http://pbase.com/jrhudson

“So we came to Alaska, on a wild and lost afternoon, caught in a tide race off a nameless point, in failing light, far from any help . .” Excerpt from “Alaska Blues, A Fisherman’s Journal” by Joe Upton, Author, published by Alaska Northwest Publishing Company, Anchorage, Alaska. Copyright by Joe Upton 1977. Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award Winner

I received my copy of “Alaska Blues, A Fisherman’s Journal” by Joe Upton as a gift from my father, Floyd “Buz” Hudson*. Joe Upton’s Alaska Blues is replete with dazzling photography. The black and white images in his book compliment well the wilderness known as The Inside Passage. Mr. Upton’s prose is superb, evoking the vastness, loneliness, adventure, and danger that is inherent in this remote part of Alaska. A suitable accompaniment is included the back, a glossary of the language of fishermen. If you have ever fantasized about cruising the Inside Passage of Alaska, even a little bit, you must read “Alaska Blues, A Fisherman’s Journal”. – J. R. Hudson

To preview this book and find out how to obtain copy go to G o o g l e  B o o k s .

(Pacific Northwest | J R Hudson is in no way affiliated with Google Books, the author, nor with the publisher.)

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*Buz Hudson and the M/V Chinook:  Floyd “Buz” Hudson was the Ship’s Purser (a ship’s accountant) aboard the steamer ferry Chinook sometime around 1948. The Chinook steamed regularly between Port Angeles, Washington and Victoria, Canada. See Postcard: View of the sharp-prowed ferry boat (Chinook) from above. Publisher: Smith’s Scenic Views Tacoma, Washington | Postcard: M/V Chinook | Chinook: Her end of life as the Sechelt Queen

Cameras in case at Cameras Et Cetera, South Sound Center, Lacey, Washington, 1972

Once upon a time, when film was the only medium for pictures for the masses, when German cameras were pushed out in favor of Japanese cameras, there was a little camera-store chain in Puget Sound called Ray’s Cameras. 

Ray’s Camera started as a small town camera store in Puyallup, Washington. Lyman K. Raymond, the store’s owner, had his store on Meridian, Puyallup’s main north-south street in Puyallup’s downtown core. By 1970 he had opened stores in the area’s three laregest malls.

Seattle, which was home of the 1962 World’s Fair with Century 21 (the future) as the theme, was home to the first regional shopping center defined as a mall (1). Ray’s Cameras stores were in the Northgate, Southcenter, and Tacoma Malls, in addition to smaller shopping centers; most notably Puyallup’s Hi Ho Shopping Center. He was enjoying a regional monopoly of the area’s largest traffic retail spaces of the time.

My girlfriend worked at Ray’s Cameras in the Hi Ho Shopping Center in Puyallup. At the end of the day when the center was closing, she had to count out the money taken in and balance against the cash register. She could do this but I started helping her with the process. She agreed that I had a better aptitude for closing out so she told Mr. Raymond about me and asked if he would be interested in hiring me which he did.

Mr. Raymond brought me into his original store in downtown Puyallup to ship inventory around to the malls. He had long lists of requests for inventory from each of the store managers that he apparantly had a hard time filling. The area managers were asking for the latest Japanese-made cameras but he wanted me to move out the older European-made equipment. It was a balancing act though I supported the managers requests as best I could with both European and Japanese-made equipment.

The European cameras were Leica, Contax, Hassleblad, Rollei; and the Japanese cameras competing with them were Pentax, Nikon, Mamiya, Yashica, and Canon. Ray’s european stock was getting old, the Japanese cameras were newer and priced more competitively. It would have been a camera collector’s dream to be where I was at this time.

Mr. Raymond assigned me back to Hi Ho. My girlfriend and I poured our efforts into this little store. It was “our” pride and joy and our livelyhood. She was still in high school and I was one year out. One night after cashing our paychecks, we covered her family’s livingroom carpet with $20 bills. Each of us living with our families still had little in the way of expenses so we were very comfortable with our incomes.

Ray’s Cameras, Hi Ho Shopping Center, Puyallup, Washington, 1971

As I was working one afternoon a gentleman with a notepad was walking around the store taking notes. I was curious and, like I would do with anyone visiting, I asked him if he was interested in anything. He responded, “I’m thinking about buying it.” I asked, “What?” He responded, “The store.” My response was, “I wish you luck!” There were signs that Mr. Raymond was losing interest in his stores plus I was not too suprised that someone would take an interest in them considering the locations in which he held leases.

Phil Swygart, the man with the notepad, was a Vice President of Wayne’s Photofinishing in Chehalis, Washington. Wayne’s was a very high-volume photofinishing plant. They served most all the camera stores, drugstores, and grocery stores that took in film for processing throughout the Pacific Northwest. One of their products was “Wayne’s Bonus Photo” which provided a regular and smaller tear-out pring provided with film processing. Wayne’s had the backing needed to purchase the entire chain of Ray’s Cameras which they did and renamed them “Cameras Et Cetera”.

Cameras Et Cetera, Southcenter Mall, Tukwila, Washington, 1973

I was installed as an assistant manager at Cameras Et Cetera at the SouthCenter Mall store, then as store manager in Lacey’s South Sound Center Mall near Olympia. My team doubled the sales from the earlier year which impressed Mr. Swygart (I then worked directly under his son Vic Swygart) and I was moved to their highest-volume store which was at Southcenter Mall.

Anyway, all of this is now history. Cameras Et Cetera was bought by Kits Cameras, who was eventually bought by Ritz Cameras. I went on to manage the highest-volume photographic retailer in Washington, Jafco at Southcenter. Jafco was bought by Modern Merchandising which was bought by Best, then eventually dissolved.

Busy day selling at Jafco, Southcenter, Tukwila, Washington 1977 (J. R. on right)

There was little information on this past on the web so I felt that it was important to share this history. The period in this documentary covered the decade from 1970-1979.

(1) Source: Evolution of the Shopping Center

—> PACIFIC NORTHWEST IMAGES  <—

“Schooner Shaw Island,” was the first picture I ever took inside of the San Juan Islands of Washington. In 1974, after quitting my job at a camera store in order to temporarily become a “sailing bum,” I sailed a small sailboat from Gig Harbor in south Puget Sound up North through the San Juan Islands, then back again. After sailing in pre-summer weather in June, flirting with capsizing conditions, enduring a thunderstorm, then approaching the Shaw Island ferry landing, I took this image with a telephoto lens. I have not been able to identify the ship but it appears to be a schooner.

The telephoto lens exaggerates cumulous clouds far behind the ship. Appearing to be night, this was midday. I used a blue filter and underexposed the exposure in order to achieve the appearance of night. The camera was a Nikon “Nikkormat FTn” 35mm, the telephoto a Nikor 200mm f4 fixed focal length with Kodachrome slide film. Taken hand-held from a sailboat.

With an amazing passion to capture life in the Pacific Northwest during an era when logging was the biggest industy in the region, Darius Kinsey gave us a storehouse of imagery to document that part of our heritage. Darius Kinsey was active as a photographer during the period 1890 to 1940. His images can be found here: Darius Kinsey images (Source: Whatcom Museum).

Kinsey Cedar Stump Log House (Source: Wikipedia)

Those of us who have lived in the Pacific Northwest, even if we have not known him by name, have undoubtedly seen the work of Josef Scaylea (1913-2004), perhaps the best known photographer of the region. Mr. Scalea served as chief photographer of the Seattle Times for 35 years.

Here are the links to explore:

“Classic Northwest Photography” by Josef Scaylea at SeattleGallery.com

Josef Scaylea’s “Blue Angels flying over Lake Washington during Seafair, Mount Rainier in background, Seattle, August 1978″ from King County Snapshots

Official Website of Josef Scaylea