Her keel was of unusual size and in full keeping with the British oak stem and stern post. The best greenheart and oak ribs were used, being carefully dressed and of large size. The spaces between these frames were filled in solidly to a level above the water line with curved timbers of the same material as the ribs. Outside planking was oak and African teak, fastened with copper bolts and tree nails, covered with a layer of thick tar paper and then sheeted with fir fastened with spikes of bronze composition. The hull was surfaced with a sheeting of copper.
Launched Under Royal Patronage
Her length was a hundred and one feet, breadth inside paddle boxes twenty feet, outside thirty-three feet, depth eleven and one-half feet, having one hundred and nine tons burden. She carried a crew of twenty-six men and was armed with five nine-pounders. Her building, and especially her launching, created a great interest, as she is reported to have plunged into the mighty Thames under the patronage of royalty and in the presence of a vast throng of spectators.
H.B.C. Quality Shewn in Building
The construction of the “Beaver” indicates that the Hudson’s Bay Company were up-to-date and were living up to their British traditions by being always first in the field in any new enterprise that required capital and far-sighted commercial methods. It must be remembered that steam vessels were not at that time proven to be successful, but were in the experimental stage. The spirit of adventure, as the term was understood in those days, was much in evidence when the Company’s Governor and Committee ordered the “Beaver” in 1834 from Messrs. Green, Wigham & Green, at Blackwall, London.
The “Beaver” Riding at Anchor Near Victoria
Two new masts were made and installed at Port Simpson in 1858 by a carpenter named Rudlin, and she was sent to Sitka, Alaska, to be overhauled by the Russians the same winter (1858). Apart from this, nothing seems to have been spent on her other than what her own crew could do.
She had two engines 35 nominal horsepower, each of the long since obsolete side-lever type, though much in favour during those early times following the “Beaver’s” construction.