Martin Christianson LETNES

Eigenschaften

Ereignisse

Ehepartner und Kinder

Notizen zu dieser Person

Martin Letnes was reported missing when he failed to return from repairing fishing nets. His son Eddy, after searching all other possible places, donned his diving gear and began searching the water around the wharf near the Sunnyside Cannery in Prince Rupert. Eddy discovered his fathers' body in the water at the end of the pier. Foul play was suspected but nothing was proven. Martin was laid to rest in the cemetery in Prince Rupert, BC.

On June 16, 1936 the Prince Rupert newspaper reported:

CANNERYMAN IS MISSING

Some Anxiety Felt for Martin Letnes of Sunnyside, Not Seen since Last Night

Corp.Robert Gibson, provincial police, left this afternoon for Sunnyside to institite a search for Martin Letnes, veteran Skeena River canneryman, who is reported missing.

Last night at 9 o'clock Letnes, who was formerly foreman at the Cunningham cannery at Port Essington but who more recently has been employed at Sunnyside was last seen in the mess house at Sunnyside taking a cup of coffee. His failure to turn up since then has caused some concern.

Mr. Letnes has a wife and family at Port Essington. Clarence and Edward Letnes are his sons.

"Port Essington" was a name applied in error, and one that might have slipped intothe abyss of time. In 1793 Captain George Vancouver entered the Skeena River estuary without in fact recognizing it as an estuary, and named the supposed bay in honour of one of his Royal Navy friends. When Irish businessman Robert Cunningham established a trading post at a place called "Spokeshute" some eighty years later. He used the name chosen by Vancouver. Thus Port Essington came into life.

Built for a gold rush in the Interior, then bolstered at first by the fur trade and ultimately by the blossoming salmon industry, Port Essington was the transportation hub of the North. Fromhere the Skeena riverboats thrummed busily up and down the river; here was the coastal steamers' port of call. From far-away villages came cedar canoes filled with First Nations workers for the six canneries clustered around the town. Port Essington was a multicultural boom town centred around Cunningham's store; with solemn churches, long boardwalk "streets," gambling houses and grand hotels (one of which boasted "the longest bar north of San Francisco").

The beginning of the end for Port Essington was the Grand Trunk Pacific's dream of empire; which culminated in the incorporationof the city of Prince Rupert on Kaien Island in 1910, and the subsequent rail-link with the East. The community of Port Essington lived on, but it was no longer the focus of northern expansion. One byone its residents slipped away to the new city. The community was staggered by disastrous fires, and by sweeping changes in the fishing industry. Finally, two large fires in the 1960s ended the lifeof Port Essington.

A standing committee created in 1997 by the Skeena River Hentage Trust is now investigating what might be done to recognize and develop Port Essington as a key site in thedevelopment of the North. One of their initial projects is the clearing and mapping of Essington's fascinating historic cemetery. Other, more long-term, projects may include rebuilding a segment of Dufferin Street, and the refurbishing of a small dock to facilitate a permanent Skeena River study base at Port Essington. No matter what the future brings, however, one thing is certain. With the erection of an illuminated sign by the Skeena River Hentage Trust in 1998 or 1999, the town will once again be seen and known by the people of the coast. Indeed, with the help of solar-charged batteries, the lights need never again go out in Port Essington.

For more information about Port Essington, or the committee formed to study it, please contact Ken Campbell at 624-3827.

(Research):Martin may have immigrated to Canada via the United States -

30.03.1892, 22 years old, Martin left for New York on the ship "Juno" - Per Audun Letnes

(Medical):Drowned at the end of a wharf in Port Essington and was burried in Prince Rupert

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Titel	Strom-Wedege-Aarvik
Beschreibung
Hochgeladen	2018-03-15 07:01:11.0
Einsender	Tom Kristian Strøm-Wedege
E-Mail	tswmeister@gmail.com
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