Going on to Golden by train from Revelstoke, I looked up Captain F. P. Armstrong, with whom I had already been in communication by wire. The Captain had navigated steamers between Golden and Windermere for many years, they told me at C. P. R. headquarters in Revelstoke, and had also some experience of the Bend. He would be unable to join me for the trip himself, but had spoken to one or two men who might be induced to do so. In any event his advice would be invaluable.
I shall have so much to say of Captain Armstrong in the account of a later part of my down-river voyage that the briefest introduction to a man who has been one of the most picturesque personalities in the pioneering history of British Columbia will suffice here. Short, compactly but cleanly built, with iron-grey hair, square, determined jaw and piercing black eyes, he has been well characterized as “the biggest little man on the upper Columbia.” Although he confessed to sixty-three years, he might well have passed for fifty, a circumstance which doubtless had much to do with the fact that he saw three years of active service in the transport service on the Tigris and Nile during the late war. Indeed, as became apparent later, he generally had as much reserve energy at the end of a long day’s paddling as another man I could mention who is rather loath to admit forty.
Courtesy of Byron Harmon, Banff
MT. ASSINIBOINE, NEAR THE HEADWATERS OF THE COLUMBIA
TWIN FALLS (left)
TAKAKAWA FALLS (right)
TWO GREAT CATARACTS OF THE COLUMBIA WATERSHED
Captain Armstrong explained that he was about to close the sale of one of his mines on a tributary of the upper Columbia, and for that reason would be unable to join us for the Big Bend trip, as much as he would have enjoyed doing so. In the event that I decided to continue on down the Columbia after circling the Bend, it was just possible he would be clear to go along for a way. He spoke highly of Blackmore’s ability as a river man, and mentioned one or two others in Golden whom he thought might be secured. Ten dollars a day was the customary pay for a boatman going all the way round the Bend. That was about twice the ordinary wage prevailing at the time in the sawmills and lumber camps. The extra five was partly insurance, and partly because the work was hard and really good river men very scarce. It was fair pay for an experienced hand. A poor boatman was worse than none at all, that is, in a pinch, while a good one might easily mean the difference between success and disaster. And of course I knew that disaster on the Bend—with perhaps fifty miles of trackless mountains between a wet man on the bank and the nearest human habitation—was spelt with a big D.