Steamboat Saga — Kamloops Lake, BC
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Dunbar Loop
N 50° 45.042 W 120° 43.575
10U E 660393 N 5624566
Today as people drive quickly along British Columbia's highway few know that in the last half of the 19th century riverboats were a very common way to travel many of the rivers and lakes of the Interior.
Waymark Code: WMNYKA
Location: British Columbia, Canada
Date Posted: 05/24/2015
Views: 4
Most people think of America's Mississippi and Ohio rivers as where the riverboats sailed, but British Columbia had many riverboats plying the rivers and lakes. And Kamloops Lake, seen below this historic marker, was one of those places.
A few hundred steamboats navigated waterways from the days of the Cariboo Gold Rush until the 1920s when railways were finally linked. The first route was the Lower Fraser River and Harrison Lake taking people from Victoria and New Westminster to Port Douglas at the head of Harrison Lake. Then they followed a trail to Lillooet Lake where again they would board a steamboat to the head of that lake. This would again repeat for Seaton and then Anderson lakes.
That was the nature of the steamboat operations in BC. In those areas where water transport was feasible and the rapids were mild or did not exist the steamboats ruled the transportation network.
When the Cariboo Wagon Road terminus changed from Lillooet to Yale, the Lower Fraser River route abandoned the Lillooet, Seaton, and Anderson lakes route. Instead Yale became the head of the navigational system. Although one vessel, the Skuzzy, made it beyond Yale. But as the Wikipedia entry states:
[O]n September 7, [1882] the Skuzzy again attempted the rapids at Hell's Gate and once again failed. [Andrew] Onderdonk then had ringbolts drilled into the canyon's walls, and he stationed 125 Chinese railway employees above. Observers were betting on the success of the journey, and odds were 100:1 against.
Finally, with the aid of her steam capstan winching in the cable and 125 men pulling at her tow rope, the Skuzzy made it through Hell's Gate. It took 16 days to make the 16 mile trip to Boston Bar. The Skuzzy became the first sternwheeler to arrive in Lytton.
As the chief engineer for the Canadian Pacific Railway in BC, Onderdonk had a strategy of railway building that kept many steamboats in operation for a few years longer than expect. Kamloops Lake was a prime example. Instead of building the railway along the shores of the lake, Onderdonk would focus construction on areas not served by the steamboats. For example, here he focused on construction from Savona west and Kamloops east. Passengers would have to transfer to the steamboats for the length of Kamloops Lake. But this only lengthened the steamboat service for a year at the most.
Steamboats plied these waterways as well as others:
- The Lower Fraser River - New Westminster to Yale
- Kamloops Lake
- The Upper Fraser River - Soda Creek to Tete Jaune Cache
- The Arrow Lakes
- Kootenay Lake