Lady Wexham sinking and rescue

The sinking and rescue of the Lady Wexham is presented through the survival and recovery of five-year-old Little Bill Sheckley, the last person saved from the passenger boat after it sank on 11 April. His return home with his parents, after weeks in hospital, gives the rescue its personal measure: survival did not end when he was brought out of danger, but depended on his recovery from the illness that followed.

The Rescue and Its Last Survivor

Jack Greywolf, a committed conservationist from Vancouver Island, led the rescue mission. Little Bill was the final person saved. The account does not detail the mechanics of the sinking or the rescue, but stresses the urgency of what came afterward: Bill suffered dangerous hypothermia, which developed into full-blown pneumonia.

Recovery and Return Home

Bill spent weeks under observation at Victoria Hospital. By the time the account was published, he had recovered, was described as fighting fit, and had returned home with his grateful parents. Their gratitude was directed particularly toward Jack Greywolf, whose concern for the boy’s recovery extended beyond the rescue itself.

Public Memory of the Rescue

The newspaper account presents Greywolf as the “hero of Tofino” and emphasizes that Little Bill was not the only person indebted to him. Its public celebration of the rescuer contrasts with Leon Anawak’s private response as he reads the report: he folds and throws the paper aside, saying that Shoemaker would have gone mad. His anger, however, is directed at Judith Li and himself, not at the boy’s recovery or the gratitude expressed by his family. The episode thus places a life-saving act inside a wider atmosphere of blame and unease.