It's The Story

I've been trying to come up with a topic for this entry to the blog and considered talking about the road construction in front of the store (still going on, but there are signs that it's nearly over) or about the next storewide sale (October 11- 14).  But instead I decided to write about an item I recently bought from another dealer at our store. It illustrates the point that it is often the story behind the item that makes the item interesting.

The item is the photograph (shown here) identified on the back as "Captain of the Norge" so I thought I would Google the Norge to see if either it or its captain was noteworthy.  "Noteworthy" was an understatement.  The S/S Norge sank in 1904 after hitting a rock in the North Atlantic.  It was the worst civilian maritime disaster until the Titanic sank 8 years later - 160 survived and 635 did not.  The captain, Captain Gundel, went down with the ship but after swimming for about 2 hours in the cold North Atlantic was found by one of the lifeboats and was saved.

Could the person in this photo be the Captain Gundel who swam for 2 hours in the north Atlantic?  As it turned out - no.  The person in the photo is Captain Christian Bernhard Knudsen who was formerly the captain of the ill fated S/S Danmark. He became captain of the S/S Norge after the Danmark sank in a storm in 1889 with no loss of life (but that's another amazing story).  Knudsen was the captain of the Norge until Captain Gundel took over in 1901. My photo was taken before 1898 when the operation of the Norge changed from the Thingvalla Line to the Scandinavian America Line.  In the photo, Captain Knudsen is wearing the badge of the Thingvalla Line.

So .... this simple photograph has two amazing stories behind it - the sinking of the S/S Danmark and the sinking of the S/S Norge.  The summary I've given above is only the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.  And many thanks to Borge Solem, from the Norway Heritage Community for providing me with the correct identification of the Captain in my photo.