Princess Sofia Memorial
Sunday Oct 25, 2026, 12 noon
Gravesite of Walter Harper and Frances Wells
Evergreen Cemetery
601 Seater St, Juneau, AK 99801, USA
Here lie the bodies of Walter Harper and Frances Wells, his wife.
Drowned on the Princess Sofia 25th Oct 1918
May light perpetual shine upon them.
108th anniversary
(near the gravesite of Joe Juneau)
On Oct. 25, 1918, more than 340 people died when the SS Princess Sophia sank after striking Vanderbilt Reef in Lynn Canal. On Saturday October 25, the 107th anniversary of the sinking, a group will gather around the graves of Walter Harper and Frances Wells in Evergreen to commemorate Alaska’s worst maritime disaster.
Harper and Wells are among the 21 shipwreck victims buried in Juneau.
Harper and Wells were on their way back to the Lower 48 to become involved in World War I war effort when the Princess Sophia sank. Only five years earlier, Harper became the first man to reach the summit of Denali, then known as Mount McKinley.