Updated 4 September 2020. Originally posted 27 October 2011.

The schooner Equator, now derelict in an Everett marina, was once chartered by Robert Louis Stevenson (of Treasure Island fame) and was in large part the inspiration of his South Seas Tales.

The Schooner Equator

Drive north out of downtown Everett, Washington, on the West Marine View Drive, past the Naval station and Scuttlebutt Brewing, and turn left on 10th Street into the marina. To your right is a large parking lot for local fishermen and their boat trailers. That’s where I learned to drive my famously temperamental 66 Ford Mustang (you can admire her beauty in the gallery below). To your left is a large blue shed with the fading letters ‘Equator’ painted at the crest. Out of its shadows, above the mangled chain-link fence, emerges the rotted prow of a pygmy two-masted schooner. The Equator, built in San Francisco in 1888, was once a sail-powered copra trader. In 1897 she was fitted for steam, and later converted to gasoline and finally diesel before being ingloriously abandoned in Everett harbor in 1957. Now she is a ruin, and the only surviving hull of her era. Well, ‘surviving’ is probably the wrong word now, as her stern collapsed in late 2019.

Records indicate that she was fitted as a tugboat for the Puget Sound fleet in 1941 (though the picture on her Wikipedia page, famously unreliable, is labeled from 1934 so who knows really) and frequented the Seattle waters, so I like to think my grandfather, Cpt. Jack Pym, was well acquainted with her.

Several attempts have been made to preserve or even rebuild her, but the only successful action was to get her on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.

She is an important historical artifact for her very survival. Readers of my blog will know I value her for that alone. But today we are interested in her literary importance.

Robert Louis Stevenson and the South Seas

In 1889, the Equator was chartered by famed author Robert Louis Stevenson and his wife Fanny Vandegrift Stevenson. Together they toured several Micronesia islands before they were deposited on Samoa, where they lived for the remainder of Robert’s life. He learned much of sailing and the seas on that voyage, as well as the language as customs of the native Polynesians.

The ship and the people inspired him to write several novellas and short stories to capstone his already illustrious career. Sadly, superior as the South Seas Tales and their fellows are, he is (mostly) only remembered for his earlier works. I think we authors would like to share a collective groan to think that only our roughest works, lacking all the nuances of language and thought learned by our later works, will be all that survives us.

Pirates, Folklore, and How Disney Destroyed My Childhood

Pirate romanticism can be attributed to Stevenson. He is the father of the modern pirate story in much the same way Tolkien is the father of modern fantasy.[footnote]That both these men took their inspiration from others, including women who have been overlooked, is not to be ignored. However as it is their specific interpretation that modern storytellers take their own inspiration from, I maintain the term ‘fathers.’[/footnote] As such, Stevenson either popularized or invented much of the pirate folklore still in use. Who doesn’t picture a pirate without a peg leg or a hook hand, eye patch, and tricorn hat, or some combination thereof? And what self-respecting pirate isn’t in possession of a blood-stained map where X marks the spot? For it is a well known fact that a self-respecting pirate in possession of a blood-stained map where X marks the spot must be in want of a dead man’s chest.

Now, these are motifs more than folklore, even if they have blurred those line. But one piece of folklore attributed to Stevenson’s use is the song ‘Dead Man’s Chest.’ It went on to inspire several spin-offs, including the diddy ‘A Pirate’s Life for Me’ from Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean.[footnote]Those of us who are old enough remember this as a song from the Disneyland theme ride long before it was a fun film followed by a series of increasingly terrible ones. We’re the same ones who are old enough to have cried when they decommissioned the 20000 Leagues Under the Sea ride to refit it as Finding Nemo[/footnote] The song was originally attributed as a folklore tune but it was, in fact, written by Robert Louis Stevenson for the book.

Stevenson’s Unusual Approach to non-Europeans

When Stevenson chartered the Equator, he already knew that his death drew night; it was for that very reason he struck out for the South Seas, seeking a warmer climate for his weak lungs. It does not take a genius of literary criticism to understand the impact mortality has on one’s writings.

Stevenson’s South Seas Tales (originally titled Island Nights’ Entertainment) and other stories written in this period are startlingly radical for their time. While his heroes are mostly Imperialists, and therefore racist by default, his actual depictions of the native Polynesians are in stark contrast to his heroes opinions of them (though perhaps not as much as would satisfy modern audiences). This is somewhat surprising as Stevenson considered himself a Conservative. Perhaps the Conservative Party of the later 19th century wasn’t as terrible as it is now.

These late-life works were inspired by living and working with the Polynesians, learning their language and culture, and were therefore different to his earlier works such as Treasure Island. The attitudes of his first novel were more in-line with the attitudes of his European and American readers. As a result, his late stories were much maligned and are largely forgotten today. Some adaptations have been made, however, including a recent BBC radio drama adapted by Jane Rogers and starring David Tennant. Her wonderful article on writing the adaptation can be read here. It pays special attention to colonialism and missionary zeal, and their destruction of native culture. A topic dear to my heart, as my readers know.

So what does this have to do with myth? Why is this post here?

Honestly, it has nothing to do with it. The original was a vestigial post of blogs past that somehow became popular. I suppose I can shoe-horn it in with references to folklore, heritage conservation, and the war of culture. Regardless of its lack of mythic content it covers literature and maritime history, two topics I remain passionate about. Rewriting it has given me the itch to get back into maritime folklore and myth, and so after The Serpent and the Swan  is published I may dive in that direction. I promise to link any research I do back here and, of course, share it with my Readers List. In the meantime, happy reading.

Footnotes

1. That both these men took their inspiration from others, including women who have been overlooked, is not to be ignored. However as it is their specific interpretation that modern storytellers take their own inspiration from, I maintain the term ‘fathers.’
2. Those of us who are old enough remember this as a song from the Disneyland theme ride long before it was a fun film followed by a series of increasingly terrible ones. We’re the same ones who are old enough to have cried when they decommissioned the 20000 Leagues Under the Sea ride to refit it as Finding Nemo.

• 

• 

• 

•