In conjunction with Campbell “Scott” Church III whose family built the M/V Westward in 1924, and current owner Hugh Reilly, Seattle-based documentarian John Sabella is seeking the resources necessary to combine a unique and irreplaceable archive of historic film with modern footage to chronicle eight decades of history as observed from the decks of what is arguably Seattle’s most famous motor yacht. The stars of our program, drawn from the Westward’s extraordinary clientele, include some of this country’s most famous early 20th Century business leaders and entertainers, individuals like A.C. Gilbert, inventor of the Erector Set, film magnate George Eastman, banker Paul Mellon, beer baron George Pabst, investor E.F. Hutton and his wife, Marjorie Merriweather Post, and show business icons Walt Disney, John Wayne, Phil Harris, Fibber McGee & Molly and Amos & Andy, all of whom who sought to experience the excitement of exploring the pristine wilderness that was territorial Alaska.

The Project
Westward will be an hour-long PBS-style documentary that will be made available for broadcast and distributed for home viewing on DVD. The project is sponsored by the Northwest Maritime Center & Wooden Boat Foundation (NMC), the Port Townsend, Washington-based non-profit organization that will serve as the repository for tax deductible contributions to the documentary effort. The NMC’s expansive new facility now emerging on the Port Townsend waterfront will offer a wide range of educational and recreational activities in celebration of traditional maritime skills and culture and Pacific Northwest maritime history.

Additional support is provided by the Pacific Northwest Fleet of the Classic Yacht Association (PNWF), of which the M/V Westward is a signature member. The PNWF is dedicated to the preservation and celebration of classic Northwest-built wooden vessels conceived and constructed during America’s age of elegance. The Westward Documentary Project promises to raise public awareness in a manner that serves the core missions of each of these distinguished organizations.

The Church Familly Films Collection
The documentary will take advantage of The Church Familly Films Collection. Recorded from the 1920s to the 1950s, this film resource is remarkable: dozens of edited films and hundreds of reels of raw footage recorded by Campbell Church, Jr., by professional photographers who volunteered their services in exchange for trips to the last frontier, and by the likes of Kodak founder George Eastman and Hollywood producer Hal Roach who cruised aboard the Westward. For more information about the collection, click here: Church Family Films

New Production
Today, in a collaborative effort, Scott Church, who spent each summer from age 9 until he was well into adulthood cruising to Alaska aboard the family yachts and spins wonderfully entertaining yarns about the early years, Hugh Reilly, current Westward owner who has spent more than a decade researching the history of his newly refurbished vessel, and documentarian John Sabella are seeking the funding & support necessary to preserve this historic media for posterity, and to create a new program that tracks the Westward’s 80-plus-year history on the high seas.

Completely restored in 2006, the venerable old boat has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places as she cruises proudly toward her second century on the world's oceans. In May, 2007 she left Cabo San Lucas bound for Polynesia and yet another far-flung adventure.

The pressing need is to clean and repair the old films and transfer the media before it is lost forever. Once that task has been accomplished, additional monies will be required to produce a documentary that transports the viewer back in time to an era when the Pacific Northwest, the Coast of British Columbia and Alaska were distant frontiers that the Church family pioneered with legendary voyages to cruising destinations that still astonish contemporary yachtsmen, cruise ship and ferry passengers.

Thorstenson-Sabella Collection
In conjunction with retired seafood industry executive and regional historian Bob Thorstenson, Sabella’s firm has produced nine public television-style documentary histories chronicling North Pacific fisheries and fishing communities:

The Great Age of Salmon
Days of Salmon Traps & Fish Pirates
The Longline Pioneers
The Salmon Capital of the World: Story of Ketchikan
Pots of Gold: The Profit and the Sorrow
Petersburg, The Town that Fish Built
Sockeye and the Age of Sail
Centuries of Fish: Seattle’s Dynamic Distant Water Fishing Fleet
The Perfect Port: Anacortes Legends and Lore

Each of these programs has been produced in conjunction with a non-profit museum or historical society that serves as copyright holder and receives royalties based on a percentage of the proceeds of video cassette and DVD sales.

Throwbacks to a Golden Age of Northwest Boats, the firm’s most recent documentary release, treats Seattle’s stature as the hub of wooden yacht design & construction in pre-World War II America.

In addition to the edited documentaries, the collaborative effort has resulted in the transfer of a substantial amount of historic film to modern media. Bob Thorstenson has endless fishing and marine industry contacts, and he has uncovered wonderful old films in basements and attics throughout the region. Now that we are increasingly well known for our documentary efforts, historic films seem to find us. Like some of the film in the Church Family Film Collection, the material dates as far back as the early 1920s and offers priceless glimpses of maritime history. Because much of the old film was literally falling apart when we found it, our efforts have helped preserve a significant body of historic film for the scholars and history buffs of tomorrow.

Audio-Visual History of the Region
A final aspect of the decade-long effort are more than 100 professionally recorded on-camera interviews with pioneers of Northwest and Alaska nautical history, old salts ranging from dory fishermen, trap watchmen and square-rigged sailors to the CEOs of major maritime firms. Only a fraction of this material has survived the editing process and made it into the edited documentaries. The remainder represents an extensive audio-visual history of the region and its maritime industries and communities. These individuals are a diminishing resource; more than a few have crossed the bar since we captured their tales on videotape, and we are proceeding with some urgency to record as many more as possible.

In total, this collection of documentary programming, archival film transfers and on-camera interviews represents a significant contribution to regional history. Creation of Throwbacks a Golden Age broadened our focus to include recreational boating and added more historic footage as well as interviews with Northwest nautical icons like William Garden and Norm Blanchard. The production of Westward will generate substantial additions to all three components of our collection.

The Project Team
Scott Church has donated his family’s extraordinary film archive and serves as a key advisor to the project. Hugh Reilly has offered the vessel as a video production platform, along with the fruits of his 12-year effort to chronicle its history. Since his tenure as the founding editor of Pacific Fishing Magazine in the late 1970s, John Sabella has written extensively on nautical issues. Considered an authority on marine safety, his firm produces educational and instructional media products used by vessel operators throughout the world. Award winning videographer Paul Sharpe represents the photographic and editorial component of the production team.

The Church Family Films Collection
Campbell Church, Jr., was a tireless photographer and filmmaker. Examples of his work, the films Westward, Cruising Alaska 1920s-Style and Bear Facts: 1934 Voyage of the Hussar, have now been released on DVD.

Each year he recorded new footage and new faces. Church gave films to departing guests as keepsakes and conceived a series of six short films that were carefully packed in leather cases and shipped to a Who’s Who of prospective excursion clients in cities across America:

Part 1 Cruising Southeast Alaska
Part 2 Fishing
Part 3 More Fishing
Part 4 Strange Adventures
Part 5 Camera Hunt
Part 6 Great Bears of Southern Alaska

Along with the edited films, Church and his cameramen recorded hundreds of reels of raw film that now comprise priceless glimpses of frontier Alaska, of early yachting, cruising, camping and hunting, of privileged lifestyles in an age of elegance and of early 20th Century celebrities at play.

The Westward Documentary Project
With contributions ranging from $100 to five-figure sums, The Westward Documentary Project has raised some $25,000 in sponsorship contributions to archive and preserve the Church collection, and to produce a contemporary documentary that mates the historic film with new footage that follows the Westward through eight decades of history. With the overall fund raising goal set at $100,000, substantial additional monies are required to complete the project. Please consider supporting this important enterprise.

Tax deductible contributions should be made made out to the Northwest Maritime Center and delivered to the following address. Please send notification with your check indicating that the monies are intended exclusively for The Westward Documentary Project.

Pete Helsell
Finance Director
Northwest Maritime Center
P.O. Box 82
Port Townsend, WA 98368
360-385-3628

For additional information about The Westward Documentary Project, or to request a copy of the project proposal, contact the following:
John Sabella
John Sabella & Associates, Inc.
805 W. Emerson St.
Seattle, WA 98119
Phone: 206-281-8626
Fax: 206-217-0899
Toll free: 888-719-4099
Email: info@johnsabella.com