SYMHC Classics: SS Princess Sophia
Stuff You Missed in History Class
iHeartPodcasts
4.2 • 23.6K Ratings
🗓️ 20 December 2025
⏱️ 31 minutes
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Summary
This 2018 episode covers the sinking of the SS Princess Sophia, a massive tragedy for both Canada and the United States. But it was also really overshadowed by the end of World War I and the flu pandemic.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.9 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:06.9 | Happy Saturday. |
| 0:08.3 | Our episodes this week were about Walter Harper, who died in the SS Princess |
| 0:12.7 | Sophia disaster. |
| 0:14.3 | We have a previous episode about that disaster, which is today's Saturday classic. |
| 0:19.4 | This episode talks about what an enormous tragedy this was for the people of the area |
| 0:23.7 | beyond the deaths of Walter Harper and his wife, Francis. |
| 0:27.7 | This episode originally came out on October 15, 2018. |
| 0:34.6 | Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of IHeart Radio. |
| 0:45.3 | Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson. |
| 0:49.1 | And I'm Holly Fry. |
| 0:50.7 | We're coming up on the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the SS Princess Sophia, which sank in the Lynn Canal in southeastern Alaska on October 25th of 1918. |
| 1:01.3 | This was a massive tragedy for both Canada and the United States. |
| 1:05.9 | It had a huge impact on Alaska, British Columbia, and Yukon. |
| 1:13.4 | But it was also really overshadowed by the end of World War I and the flu pandemic that was going on by that point. So it has been nicknamed the |
| 1:19.0 | unknown Titanic of the West Coast. In 1918, the primary way to get to many parts of Alaska and |
| 1:26.1 | Yukon was by water. Ships carried passengers, |
| 1:29.8 | cargo, and mail to ports along the coast of Alaska and British Columbia, and people |
| 1:35.0 | traveled by river inland from there. And to some extent, this continues to be true today. |
| 1:40.5 | Although there are more roads and airplanes going to and from these places, boats still |
| 1:45.3 | continue to be a major way to travel. |
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