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of the first things Bartlett did upon his arrival in Esquimalt was to fire the first officer for incompetence. Finding himself suddenly without a first mate, Bartlett promoted the second officer, in spite of his lack of experience and youth. He was a young Scot admired by staff and crew alike. Indeed, he was one of the only crewmen who seemed to stand apart, head and shoulders above the rest.
    Alexander “Sandy” Anderson had barely earned his second mate’s papers by the time he joined the Karluk . He was a slender young man, just twenty-two years old, with a sweet, boyish face, and a graceful manner, which won him friends easily. He had a beautiful singing voice, played the violin, and had a fondness for floppy, wide-brimmed hats. There wasn’t anyone who didn’t like Sandy.
    His father’s weekly income as a railway signalman was a meager thirty shillings a week, and young Sandy learned at an early age how to be enterprising and resourceful. The youngest of three boys, Sandy did not share his brothers’ interest in formal education, and instead fixed his sights on taking an engineering apprenticeship.
    In 1908, plagued by illness, he was instead led to an “open-air life” to cure his poor health. And so he took to the sea. He wasn’t the only member of his family to have done so. Sandy’s maternal grandfather had sailed on a whaling expedition to the Arctic and died there.
    Apprenticed as a merchant seaman, Sandy later paid for his second mate’s examination out of his own pocket in early 1913. He joined the SS Lord Derby as third mate, but when he arrived in Vancouver to join her company, he discovered she was in dry dock at the Esquimalt Naval Yard, undergoing repairs. Sandy hung about the shipyard, living on the Lord Derby, waiting for her to become seaworthy again. All repairs ceased, however, when the dock workers went on strike, and Sandy found himself stranded in Esquimalt without a ship or a job. He could continue to wait indefinitely for the Lord Derby , he could go ashore and try his luck, he could join the Dollar Line as some of his friends had done, or he could take a job as second mate on the ship Karluk .
    Bartlett knew Sandy was young, but he had to follow maritime protocol by promoting the next in line. “I came here 24 as 2nd mate at $80 a month & had only signed on for a couple of days when the skipper & mate had a row & the mate was discharged,” Sandy wrote excitedly. “The old man appointed me chief officer on the spot . . . although I have only a seconds ticket & haven’t had that any time yet. At present . . . the whole responsibility of getting her ready for sea [is] on my head & as we are booked to sail on Tuesday & . . . behind in many ways I have my work cut out.”
    Bartlett had dismissed another member of the crew, this time one of the firemen who was put ashore when he refused to work. They had nicknamed him “the Suffragette” because he had stopped eating and working some weeks prior, and everyone agreed he should not have been hired to begin with. He was replaced by the youngest of the sailors, Fred Maurer.
    Maurer had a quiet intensity about him, which came from his eyes. They were clear blue, penetrating, and piercing. Yet there was kindness in the gaze, and wisdom for such a young man. The rest of his features seemed to be a series of afterthoughts. He was husky and blond, with a firm, rugged jawline and an almost sheepish smile, as if he were perpetually trying to hold himself back and maintain a sense of control.
    Just twenty years old, Maurer was a reserved, conscientious, church-going boy from New Philadelphia, Ohio, with “a thirst for 25 excitement, plenty of determination, a saving sense of humor and a few cents in cash.” As a teenager, he had worked as many odd jobs as possible to save enough money to put himself through business college in Akron at the age of sixteen. Unfortunately, he had an