The first steamer to ply on the Red River was brought in pieces across the country from a tributary of the Mississippi, and rebuilt at Georgetown, a small place some twenty miles north of the present town of Moorhead. The boat was called, before its transportation, the Anson Northrup, and was afterwards known as the Pioneer. She began her career on the Red River in 1859, and in that year took a cargo to Fort Garry. She was the joint property of the Hudson’s Bay Company and Messrs. J. C. and H. C. Burbank & Co., of St. Paul, Minnesota. (A cut of this steamer may be seen in a book called “The Winnipeg Country,” published by Cupples, Upham & Co., Boston.)
The next steamer was the International, built at Georgetown, in 1861, for the Hudson’s Bay Company, at a cost of about $20,000. Her length was 160 feet, breadth 30 feet, depth (from the water-line to the ceiling of her upper saloon) 20 feet, and her registered tonnage was 133⅓ tons. She was found to be too large for the Red River navigation. The same company’s steamer, the Northcote, commenced to ply on the Saskatchewan about 1875. In 1878 there were running on the waters of Manitoba seventeen steamers, among which were the Manitoba, Dakota, Selkirk, Swallow, Minnesota, Prince Rupert, Keewatin, etc.
The Hudson’s Bay Company at that time owned a propeller which ran on Lake Winnipeg to the portage at the mouth of the Saskatchewan, where connection was made with the Northcote and a steel-built steamer, the Lilly. This company had also another steamer plying on the Red River, named the Chief Commissioner.
Since the opening of the country by railways the navigation of the Upper Red River and the Assiniboine has been of small account, but below Selkirk there is still a considerable trade carried on. There are at least half a dozen companies interested in the navigation of these waters. The North-West Navigation Company runs three steamers, the Princess, 350 tons; the Red River, 200 tons; the Marquette, 160 tons, and a number of barges. The Selkirk Fish Company owns the Sultana, of 200 tons; the Manitoba Fish Company has the City of Selkirk, of 160 tons. Besides these there is a numerous fleet of steam-tugs and barges. In all there are some fifty steamers on these inland waters. During the palmy days of Red River transportation the leading name was that of Norman W. Kittson, at that time of St. Paul, Minnesota, but formerly a trader of the old Red River settlement, who was often familiarly called “Commodore Kittson.”
In British Columbia.[64]
The pioneer steamship of the Northern Pacific was the Beaver, whose history from first to last was a very romantic one. This vessel was built at Blackwall, on the Thames, by Messrs. Green, Wigram and Green, for the Hudson’s Bay Company, and was launched in 1835 in the presence of 150,000 spectators, including William IV. and many of the English nobility. Cheers from thousands again greeted her in answer to the farewell salute of her guns when she sailed away for the New World. The Beaver was a side-wheel steamer, 101.4 feet long, 20 feet beam, and 11 feet deep; tonnage, 109. Her machinery, made by Boulton & Watt, was placed in position, but the paddle-wheels were not attached. She was rigged as a brig, and on August 27th sailed for the Pacific under canvas, in command of Captain Home, with the barque Columbia as her consort. On March 19th, 1836, the Beaver dropped anchor at the mouth of the Columbia River, having made the voyage in 204 days. In her log-book it is recorded on May 16th: “Carpenters stripping paddle-wheels. At 4 p. m. engineers got up steam, tried the engines, and found to answer very well; at 5 o’clock, came to anchor, and moored in our old berth; at 8 o’clock all hands were mustered to ‘splice the main brace’”—a nautical phrase used in reference to the custom, less common now than then, of celebrating particular events by serving out a liberal supply of rum. The Beaver went into service without delay, running up and down the coast, in and out of every bay, river and inlet between Puget Sound and Alaska, collecting furs and carrying goods for the company’s posts.
THE LAST OF THE OLD “BEAVER.”
On March 13th, 1843, the Beaver arrived at Camosun with Factor Douglas and some of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s people to found the Fort Victoria, and the first salute which echoed in what is now Victoria harbour, was fired on the 13th of June, when the fort was finished and the company’s flag hoisted.[65] “The old steamer Beaver,” as she was called, continued her rounds under different owners with remarkable regularity and success until the fatal trip in July, 1888, when she went on the rocks near the entrance to Vancouver harbour, and was totally wrecked.