On the Job

The Story of the Teeshoe

On a storm-tossed night in December 1954, 12-year-old Fred went for a short ride with his father on the Teeshoe, a Powell River Company tug. George Ilott was the relief skipper on the TeeShoe, which had the mission that night of delivering a pilot to the freighter Giovanni Amendola. After dropping off the pilot, the tug was struck by the freighter's propeller and quickly sank. Of the four people who went into the frigid waters that night, only Fred survived. This is an edited account of his story about the others' heroic attempts to ensure he made it back to land. The unabridged version, published for the first time in the April 27, 2001 edition of the Powell River Peak can be found at prpeak.com.