Beneath Waves and Shadows - by Tyler Hooper (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

With the suspense of a thriller and the emotional depth of human drama, Beneath Waves and Shadows is the untold, meticulously researched story of survival after a 1906 shipwreck in the Pacific Northwest.

On a mild January day in 1906, the Valencia steamed out of San Francisco and began the four-day voyage to Seattle. Though it was a routine journey, the crew was well aware of the dangers of sailing along the west coast of Vancouver Island, an area known as the "Graveyard of the Pacific", a place of violent storms, dense fog, rocky shoals, and fearsome currents.

The Valencia's captain, Oscar Marcus Johnson, was an experienced mariner, but on the third day at sea, he lost his bearing in the increasingly thick winter weather. The vessel's hull was ripped apart on Vancouver Island's rocky shore, setting in motion a multiday struggle for survival that revealed both the sea's terrible power and the remarkable bravery of passengers, crew, and rescuers alike.

Of the approximately 165 souls who left San Francisco, fewer than 40 would survive.

Hooper spent more than a decade immersed in the story of the Valencia. He hiked the same wild stretches of Vancouver Island coastline where the tragedy unfolded in 1906 and combed through thousands of pages of letters, newspapers, and official reports. Drawing from survivor testimonies, and a powerful interview with one of the survivors' descendants, Hooper brings to life a deeply human story of courage, chaos and survival at sea.

Review Quotes

"Beneath Waves and Shadows took me by surprise from start to finish. In his first book Hooper shows himself to be a master storyteller, weaving a true tale with incredible characters -- you won't forget the heroine running the lighthouse -- fast-paced drama, and scenes worthy of Hampton Sides, Doug Stanton, and David Grann. The Valencia was Titanic before Titanic - and only by a few years. I kept asking myself, 'How did I not know about this before?!'" --John U. Bacon, New York Times bestselling author of The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald

"In the storm-lashed waters off Vancouver Island, the SS Valencia became a floating nightmare: botched rescues, capsized lifeboats, and monstrous waves claiming souls yards from shore. Journalist Tyler Hooper unearths the human stories behind this disaster, known as the 'Titanic of the Pacific, ' including the shocking aftermath that spurred the creation of the iconic West Coast Trail. In his riveting narrative nonfiction debut, Hooper captures the terror, heroism, and lasting echoes of this forgotten tragedy with razor-sharp prose. A must for anyone who knows the sea can scare the hell out of you." --Andrea Lankford, New York Times bestselling author of Trail of the Lost

"Valencia sank off the Washington coast in 1906, but Beneath Waves and Shadows reframes the disaster as a hinge between memory and history, not merely a maritime tragedy. Tyler Hooper knits together survivor testimony, official inquiries, and Indigenous coastal memory into a single, immersive narrative nonfiction. The voyage--fog-bound departure from San Francisco, treacherous currents, and a fatal encounter with the sea--unfolds with the precision of an investigation and the humanity of a memoir. With transparent sourcing and careful attention to naming, the work respects voices shaped by trauma while seeking a larger truth about risk, resilience, and community. A coast-of-memory meditation that is at once elegiac, rigorous, and urgently relevant to readers who trust history to illuminate the present. It invites readers to listen deeply.

A boundary-pushing blend of history, narrative nonfiction, and coastal memory, Beneath Waves and Shadows invites readers to reconsider how disasters are told, who is heard, and how a coastline can become a shared, enduring teacher. This is narrative nonfiction that reads like a thriller and respects memory with quiet reverence." --Buddy Levy, national bestselling and award-winning author of Realm of Ice & Sky and Labyrinth of Ice

About the Author

TYLER HOOPER was born in Ottawa, Ontario, but for the past decade has made his home in Victoria, B.C., a place whose rugged coastline and maritime history have shaped both his life and his work. Around 2015, he became captivated by a local legend about a ghostly ship said to haunt the waters off Vancouver Island: the Valencia. What began as a passing curiosity quickly became an obsession, and a research project he thought would last a few weeks quietly evolved into a years-long investigation.

While reporting his feature for The Atavist about the wreck, Tyler hiked the northern half of the West Coast Trail, retracing the forested headlands and storm-beaten beaches that a handful of survivors crossed in 1906.

Tyler holds a Master of Arts in History from the University of Waterloo and later earned a Certificate in Journalism from Langara College in Vancouver, graduating with the Jeani Read-Michael Mercer Fellowship. That fellowship enabled him to further refine his reporting skills at the Vancouver Sun and Province newspapers. His writing has also appeared in The Atavist Magazine, VICE, and the CBC. Beneath Waves and Shadows is his first book.