26 In Great Waters

couraging the sins and weaknesses of their fellows,
and she had brought untold blessing into the lives of
thousands of decent folk. Now she lay here on her
side, broken, bleaching in the sun and the rain,
where not a sea big enough to tear apart her rotting
timbers could come into the land-locked harbour.
After the loss of their mission-boat the Methodist
missionaries did their best to carry on for five years
with the old primitive canoes, but the extent of their
work was woefully restricted thereby and made
extremely difficult. In these years logging, fishing,
mining, and related industries were developing
rapidly up and down the coast. The need for a
boat became so insistent that again our old veteran,
William Oliver, came forward to fill the breach.
He donated a boat which he had built and equipped
himself. It cost him $6,000. He gave it, ‘‘As
a thank-offering to God for his mercy to me, a sinner,
and for the use of the Methodist Church.’”’ He
called it the Udall which means, in Indian, ‘‘the
dearest thing I possess.’’ She made her maiden
trip up to the northern field on December 10th, 1908.
She worked the district lying between Seymour
Narrows on the south-and Portland Canal on the
north. After six months’ work, sad to say, the
Udall was wrecked and lost by striking an un-
charted rock. Captain Oliver and the missionary,
C. W. Webber, barely escaped, over stormy seas,
with their lives. After drifting for five days in their
little dinghy they were seen from Port Simpson
and rescued. For three years very little but shore