Losvar Boats Were Prized By Sport Fishermen -- Family Firm Was Based In Mukilteo

Even though it was covered by a blue plastic tarp, the beautiful lines of the boat at rest in Dan Lowman's yard in Everett immediately caught my eye.

What was it that seemed so familiar?

I went by there several times, finally stopping to talk with the

young man who owned the house and the boat.

Lowman is an employee of the Port of Everett. He has the formal title of director of maintenance . . . that means he keeps things fixed up on our waterfront. He told me he bought the boat from someone who no longer wanted it; he, too, was taken by the classic lines, the appreciation of a well-done, hand-crafted piece of woodwork and perhaps the inherent desire of all ``wood butchers'' to do something about restoring it to its original shape and beauty.

I really don't think he had any particular urge to own or restore a Mukilteo boat, just that he recognized a good job of boatbuilding.

That boat was one of many made by the firm of boatbuilders bearing the name Losvar - first Paul, then George, now Art. They had a boatyard and boat rental operation at Mukilteo for many years on the site of the present Losvar Condominiums, between the lighthouse and the ferry dock.

Paul came to Mukilteo from Norway, and his son George fell in love with the lighthouse keeper's daughter, Anna Christiansen. They married in 1910 and stayed married for 68 years. They built a home and ran a boatyard right next to the lighthouse.

Sixty-eight years is a long time to stay married these days. They did it. They also produced some kids; Art is the one I talk about here. He joined his father in the boatyard, and they built many small fishing boats used by sportsmen for years.

The first ones they built were clinker-built, 14-foot fishing boats, mostly propelled by a set of oars and very popular for rental purposes by sportsmen from this area. Soon the word of the good fishing spread, and people from Seattle started coming up here, too.

Eddie Bauer was one of the first and one of the most faithful. He had a big cigar and a sporting goods store in downtown Seattle - sort of an unofficial headquarters for fishing enthusiasts.

The reputation of the Losvar boats spread, too. ``Good fishing, good boats,'' was the word.

Paul Losvar started out renting boats. He also made spars for sailing vessels that came into Mukilteo to take on lumber bound for other West Coast ports and Australia and the Orient.

Paul learned his trade in Norway; in fact, he took the name Losvar from the town where he lived, adopting it as he came into this country through immigration at Ellis Island. He taught his son George the same skills, and eventually George was able to quit his job at the Crown Mill to spend full time in their boatyard.

Along with the advent of the gasoline-driven automobile came

the logical follow-up of a gas-driven outboard. Those old Elto and Evinrude engines were ``knuckle busters,'' to be sure - but once you got them going, the whole area where you fished was tremendously expanded. Soon, people wanted to fish at Possession Point, where the big run of silvers rounded Whidbey Island before moving into Everett harbor and on up the Snohomish River.

Sport fishermen never seem satisfied, so soon in good weather they were working the west side of Whidbey Island as far up as Double Bluff and Mutiny Bay. Some even crossed over to the Kitsap Peninsula, working Point No Point where they could intercept the salmon headed for Seattle's harbor and the Duwamish Waterway.

The day when you were content to go out in a 14-foot rowboat and fish at ``Humpy Hollow'' was on the way out.

All this meant the boats had to be designed for faster speeds: the high bow, the round bottom, the racy and low rear end to accommodate the outboard all came into popularity. That is the boat - made in both 16- and 18-foot lengths - in the photo with this column.

This was the beautiful shape that caught my eye in Dan Lowman's yard. Originally sold for less than $200 in the mid-1930s, reaching only $500 when they stopped building them in 1951, this type of boat today - restored and in good shape - might bring several thousand dollars from a collector.

One last thing about the Losvars. They never sold their used rental boats. When their usefulness was gone, they took them up on the beach and burned them. They didn't want any of their boats out on the water that were not in first-class condition. Call that pure Norwegian pride.

``On the Main Line,'' Robert Humphrey's column about the history of South Snohomish County, appears the second Wednesday of each month in the North Times Today.