Sinking of the Lady Wexham and rescue operation

The sinking of the Lady Wexham on 11 April became a rescue story embodied by its last survivor, five-year-old Little Bill Sheckley. After weeks in hospital recovering from hypothermia and pneumonia, Bill returned home with his parents, while Jack Greywolf was publicly recognized for leading the rescue and remaining concerned for the child afterward.

The sinking and rescue

The Lady Wexham was a passenger boat that sank on 11 April. Little Bill was the last person saved from it. The account identifies Jack Greywolf, a conservationist from Vancouver Island, as the leader of the rescue mission; it does not give further operational details about how the passengers were brought to safety.

Bill’s recovery

The rescue did not end Bill’s ordeal. He suffered dangerous hypothermia, which developed into full-blown pneumonia, and spent weeks under observation at Victoria Hospital. By the time he returned home with his grateful parents, he was described as fit again and apparently over the shock. His recovery gives the rescue a second measure of consequence: survival at sea was followed by a prolonged medical crisis, and then by a return to family life.

Greywolf and the rescued boy

A newspaper account singled out Greywolf as a particular object of the family’s gratitude, reporting his touching concern for Bill’s recovery. In a later conversation with Leon Anawak, Greywolf described the boy simply as frightened and said that he had looked after him. The contrast between the public label of hero and Greywolf’s plain account of caring for a scared child keeps the event grounded in individual attention, rather than spectacle alone.

Public memory

The rescue entered public memory through the story of the last person saved and the child’s eventual return home. Greywolf was called the hero of Tofino, but the account also makes clear that Bill was not the only person indebted to him. The event’s emotional weight rests both on the danger of the sinking and on what followed: a child’s difficult recovery, his parents’ gratitude, and a rescuer who continued to care about what became of him.