Christian Theodore Pederson (1876 – 1969)
Theodore Pederson was born in Sandefijord, Norway. He took his first whaling voyage in 1894/95. He was captain of the schooner Challenge that wintered at Herschel Island in 1908, and captain of the schooner Elvira in 1912.1)
Pederson knew Vilhjalmur Stefansson from 1906, and he helped select the Karluk for the Canadian Arctic Expedition, and sailed her from San Francisco to Victoria, British Columbia. He resigned before the ship was outfitted for the expedition. Pedersen returned to the Elvira and in 1913 the ship was frozen in and damaged by ice near Icy Reef, west of Demarcation Point on the Alaskan coast. A storm caused further damage and Pedersen and his crew sought refuge aboard the Belvedere.2) Pedersen and Olaf Swenson mushed in over the summit to Fairbanks in early November 1913.3)
Pedersen then signed on as captain of the Herman for the H. Liebes Company of San Francisco. The ship picked up Captain Robert Bartlett in Siberia and took him to St Michael where he sent the news to Ottawa that the Karluk had been crushed in the ice and the crew was marooned on Wrangel Island.4)
Pedersen and May Olive Jordan, a Canadian nurse, were married around 1921. She went on many artic trips and provided health services to people at their stops. They had one son, and Pederson had sons Ted and Walter from previous relationships.5)
Pedersen started his own business, the Northern Whaling and Trading Company, in 1923.6) It was a New York corporation formed in 1923 in partnership with A. Herskovits, a New York fur buyer.7) Pedersen had the schooner Ottillie Fjord refitted with an engine and operated it as the MV Nanuk in 1924 and 1925. Pedersen’s company had a Canadian subsidiary, the Canalaska Trading Company, with two small schooners transferring goods at Herschel Island. After 1925, the Nanuk was replaced by the Patterson, a former USCGS survey ship.8)
The steamship Patterson had been purchased by the C.K. West Company of Portland, Oregon in 1942 and they converted her into a motorship. The company ran into financial difficulties and the Todd Dry Docks Inc. took her over. The corporation sold her to Pedersen’s company, and he came to Seattle to complete the deal. He arranged for Todd to convert the ship into an auxiliary-powered two-masted schooner, sheath her hull with iron bark, build up her stern, provide her with rigging, install additional fuel tanks, and make other alterations. Pedersen remained to supervise the work at the Todd yards.9)
Pedersen was able to offer small built-to-order schooners to northern trappers. They were built in California and delivered to the arctic on the Patterson. The last of these boats was delivered in 1936. That year Canalaska was sold to the Hudson’s Bay Company and Pedersen retired from the sea, although he continued in the fur trade as a business owner. Pedersen was killed when two escaped convicts broke into his house in Pacifica, California. Pedersen’s wife survived with severe injuries.10)
Pedersen’s son Ted filmed Pedersen’s 1935 trading voyage and the videotapes, plus a collection of business records, are held at the University of Alaska archives.11)