The 143' long steam trawler Onward Ho was built at Earles Shipbuilding in Hull, England in 1907 and was 323 gross registered tons. She achieved a small bit of notoriety when she was arrested by the Russians on July 8, 1910 for fishing within the 12 mile limit, a limit the Russian government had recently set as opposed to the recognized 3 mile limit.

Captain Johnson sent the following telegram on July 12;

"I have had the misfortune to be run in and taken to Archangel. There is a new law of 12 mile limit. My position at the time the gunboat came up was latitude 68.33 north, longitude 41.22 east (this is the gunboat captain's position). You will see the gunboat captain's report is nine miles off. I am on board the gunboat, and 12 officers and men our on my ship. What the result will be I do not know; but if this is the law, there will be no more fishing in northern waters, for every fish that has been landed in Hull from this was has been got in prohibited waters according to the new law."

After much hand ringing the Onward Ho was released July 17 and returned to Hull, there a claim was made against the Russians for interrupting the voyage and the owners demanded financial compensation. After this international incident the boat slipped back into obscurity and later made her way to British Columbia, Canada,
Six years later her name would be in the news again.

Onward Ho departed Vancouver, British Columbia on Jan. 6, 1916 to fish for halibut off Cape Spencer, Alaska, on board were thirty-one men. On Jan. 18, 1916 she was sighted returning home by two other ships, she was top heavy with ice and fighting a gale, after that she was never seen again. It is presumed that she capsized somewhere over 200 miles west of Triangle Island, B.C. By mid February she was officially declared lost. Some small wreckage was later found, but no trace of the thirty-one souls in her was ever found.