The Norwegian bark Prince Arthur was traveling in ballast from Valparaiso, Chile, to Esquimalt, British Columbia, for lumber on the stormy night of January 2nd, 1903. The ship ended up striking an offshore reef 10 miles south of Cape Alava on the sparsely populated north coast of the Olympic Peninsula, eventually broke apart, and its crew of twenty men was thrown into the choppy sea. Just two people managed to make it out alive. Twelve of the victims' bodies were found and buried in shallow graves on the shore with the assistance of the local settlers and Natives.
A granite obelisk named the Norwegian Monument will be erected in commemoration of the fallen sailors a short time later by a delegation from the Norwegian community in Seattle. The bodies would quickly be moved to a shared cemetery on the bluff overlooking the wreck site, which can be visited today, though its quite a hike in. 
This tragic incident is just one of the many that have happened on the Evergreen State coast, which has long been referred to as the "Graveyard of the Pacific."

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