James Alexander (1877 - 1918)

Captain James Alexander was a Member of the Dragoon Guards and served in the Boer War. He and his wife lived in Carcross, and they spent ten years developing the Engineer Mine on Tagish Lake.¹⁾ In 1918 Alexander had twenty-five men working at the mine. He travelled south every year to promote the mine.²⁾ He was negotiating the sale of the property when he booked tickets on the Princess Sophia in 1918. Alexander planned to buy an island in the Strait of Georgia and a fine home in Vancouver with the million or so he anticipated getting from the sale. He asked the Gideons, at the Carcross Caribou Hotel, to look after his parrot, Polly. He and his wife, Louise Abigail, drowned when the Sophia sank in the Lynn Canal. Their dog, an English setter, was the sole survivor of the disaster. The dog was oil-soaked, staving, and nearly frozen when he was found at Tee Harbour. The parrot lived for another fifty years at the Carcross hotel.³⁾

George Randolf and Charles Watson also died on the Princess Sophia. Randolf was a mining expert. He and Watson had gone to Vancouver to buy machinery near Revelstoke for a mine in the north. They went north to inspect the Engineer Mine and were returning to Vancouver. Randolf’s body was recovered and sent to the Dupont Powder Company in Vancouver.⁴⁾