Construction on the vessel began in the spring of 1904 at the Bow McLachlan & Co. shipyard in Paisley, Scotland.[1][3] Later it was said that construction on Camosun had begun with the objective of completing a tugboat for service on the Hooghly River in India, but when that contract fell through, the ship was completed to the order of the Union Steamship Company.[4] The official Canadian registry number was 121204.[5]
Camosun had a gross tonnage of 1,369 and net tonnage of 793. The ship was 192.7 feet (58.7m) long, with a beam of 35.2 feet (10.7m) and depth of hold of 17.9 feet (5.5m).[3][6] The hull was strongly built of steel, with a double bottom in the bow and the stern.[1] The power plant consisted of twin triple-expansion steam engines, rated at 224 nominal horsepower.[7] Steam was generated by two boilers.[7] These were originally coal-fired, and later converted to oil.[1] The ship had a speed maximum speed of 14 knots (26km/h) but generally cruised at 12 knots (22km/h).[6]
The ship had 54 first class berths and 120 deck bunks.[1][3] The main first class cabins were located on the upper deck together with lounges fore and aft.[1] There was a smoking room as well as additional cabins on the aft top deck, on which the pilot house and officers' quarters were located on fore part of the top deck.[1] The ship had a dining saloon on the main deck.[1] The ship had a cargo capacity of about 300 tons.[1]
Delivery
Camosun left Troon, Scotland on February 19, 1905 under the command of Captain B.L. Johnson for delivery to British Columbia.[1] The ship initially proceeded to Kingston, Jamaica, where command was changed over to Capt. C.B. Smith.[1] The ship then proceeded around Cape Horn to the west coast of North America, where the vessel halted at San Francisco, California, for one month to caulk the decks. Camosun finally arrived in Vancouver, British Columbia on June 20, 1905.[1] Repairs necessary to Camosun following the delivery voyage brought Union Steamship into litigation with the ship's builders.[8]
Operations
Camosun in the Inside Passage near Vancouver, British Columbia, ca. 1912
Camosun became the flagship of the Union Steamship fleet, and was placed into service by the Union Steamship Company on July 4, 1905.[1][8] The vessel had a license to carry 199 passengers on coastal voyages, and had a crew of 38.[1] The initial route on which the vessel was placed ran from Vancouver to Stewart, British Columbia via Alert Bay, Bella Coola, Bella Bella, Port Essington, the Skeena River, Port Simpson and the Nass River.[1]Prince Rupert did not then exist, and the ship anchored at a landing float at Stewart, as no wharf had yet been built there.[1]
When Prince Rupert was founded, in 1906, Camosun was the first passenger ship to call at the new port.[1] The harbor at Prince Rupert had not been fully surveyed, and in July 1906, Camosun struck a rock in the harbor.[1] The vessel would have sunk, but was saved by the double-bottom design.[1] As a result, service was disrupted by the need transfer Camosun to Victoria, British Columbia, where the vessel underwent repairs at Joseph Spratt's shipyard.[1]
Within 18 months of entering service, Camosun was equipped with a Marconi wireless transmitter, becoming the first vessel on the Canadian Pacific coast to be so equipped.[1][3]
The first master of Camosun in operations was Frank Saunders. Echo location using the ships horn was used to navigate by night or in foggy weather, and for his skill in this, Frank Saunders was known as the "fog wizard".[1] Robert Batchelor, an experienced ocean-going seaman, took over as master when Captain Saunders left to command the ships of Canada National.
The fish packing industry was increasing in importance when Camosun came into service. Every spring Camosun transported several hundred Chinese, Japanese, and Indiana workers to the twenty-five packing plants that were on Smith's Inlet, Rivers Inlet and the Skeena and Nass rivers. The ship also transported out packed and frozen fish during the peak of the canning season, which ran from July to October.[1] Once in October 1907, Camosun returned to Vancouver with 6,000 cases of canned salmon, the largest such shipment ever landed at Vancouver up to that time.[1]
Camosun was considered a fast and reliable vessel of the time, being able to make the run from Prince Rupert to Vancouver in 45 hours under Captain Saunders.[1]
In the fall of 1906, Camosun transported the crew of the wrecked sternwheeler Pheasant from the Skeena River to Vancouver. Pheasant had been lost when the provincial government chartered the steamboat to clear the channel in the Skeena. On November 21, 1906, the sternwheeler's engines had broken down, and the powerless vessel drifted upon some rocks in mid-stream. Having reached shore, the Pheasant's crew was picked up by Camosun.[3]
In 1907, there were gold strikes in the Portland Canal area. Servicing these strikes became a profitable business for the Camosun.[8] In 1909, the Union Steamship company acquired a mail contract.[8] Other cargo carried at this time included fifty head of cattle carried on the foredeck.[8]
In 1912, Camosun was converted from coal-fired to oil-fired boilers, the high cost of which was offset by the ease and cleanliness of refueling compared to the use of coal bunkers.[9]
In early January 1913, Camosun proceeded to Van Anda, on Texada Island to transport 71 survivors from the capsize of Cheslakee, another Union steamship.[3][10]
Grounding
Camosun ashore on Digby Island, March, 1916.
On March 7, 1916, at 2:00 am, while en route to Masset, Camosun under the command of Capt. A.E. Dickson, was moving at one-quarter speed through a heavy snow storm.[11] The ship went aground near Prince Rupert harbor, at Digby Island.[11] At low tide the vessel was completely clear of the water. The seventeen passengers on board were removed by rescue vessels which had come from Prince Rupert.[11] To lighten the ship to allow it to float free at high tide, cargo bound for the Queen Charlotte Islands, including 100 tons of coal, was off-loaded into smaller transshipment vessels.[11]Camosun's strongly built hull allowed the ship to remain on the rock without damage until March 17, when the ship was finally got off under its own power.[11] The damage from the grounding turned out to be minor.[11]
Later service and fate
Camosun continued in service. On January 23, 1923, Camosun sustained minor damage in a collision with the Canadian Pacific's coastal liner Princess Beatrice.[4] The collision occurred off Kingcome Point in the Grenville Channel as Camosun was proceeding southbound from Prince Rupert.[4] Damage to Camosun was minor, and both ships continued their voyages afterwards.[4]
In another incident in the same winter, Camosun went aground briefly in a fog near Brockton Point in Vancouver's Stanley Park.[4] The Vancouver Fire Department responded to the scene, and removed passengers by use of their fire ladders.[4]Camosun was a heavy vessel with a lot of momentum, and had to be slowed down well before landings. Shortly after World War I, when Camosun was under the command of a captain who was unfamiliar with the vessel, the captain failed to give the order to reduce speed in time, and so Camosun crashed through a dock at the Rivers Inlet cannery, going right up into the cannery building itself.[4]
The Grand Trunk steamship Prince Rupert and her sister ship SS Prince George served the coast of British Columbia and Alaska. Prince Rupert had a 45-year career serving northern ports from Vancouver, British Columbia, from 1910 to 1955. The ship was considered "unlucky" and suffered several incidents during her career, including two significant ones that left large portions of the vessel underwater. The ship was broken up in 1956.
The Skeena River is British Columbia’s fastest flowing waterway, often rising as much as 17 feet (5.2 m) in a day and fluctuating as much as sixty feet between high and low water. For the steamboat captains, that wide range made it one of the toughest navigable rivers in British Columbia. Nevertheless, at least sixteen paddlewheel steamboats plied the Skeena River from the coast to Hazelton from 1864 to 1912.
SS Catala was a Canadian coastal passenger and cargo steamship built for service with the Union Steamship Company of British Columbia.
The Skeena sternwheeler was one of five sternwheelers built for the use on the Skeena River by Foley, Welch and Stewart for construction work on the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway from 1909 until 1911. She was built at Robertson's yard in Coal Harbour, Vancouver, in 1908. The other four were the Conveyor, the Operator, the Distributor and the Omineca. Three of these, the Conveyor, the Operator and the Distributor were built at Victoria, British Columbia in 1908 by Alexander Watson Jr.
John Henry Bonser (1855-1913) was a steamship captain from Oregon, United States and British Columbia, Canada. He piloted dozens of sternwheelers over his 40-year-long career and pioneered many rivers in the Pacific Northwest.
Hazelton was a sternwheeler that worked on the Skeena River in British Columbia, Canada from 1901 until 1912. Her first owner was Robert Cunningham who ran a freighting business that served the communities along the Skeena River.
The Inlander was a sternwheeler that worked on the Skeena River in British Columbia, Canada, from 1910 until 1912. She was owned by the Prince Rupert and Skeena River Navigation Company which was a syndicate of Skeena River businessmen who planned to use the Inlander as a passenger and freight steamer during the busy years of Grand Trunk Pacific Railway construction.
The Union Steamship Company of British Columbia was a pioneer firm on coastal British Columbia. It was founded in November 1889 by John Darling, a director of the Union Steamship Company of New Zealand, and nine local businessmen. The company began by offering local service on Burrard Inlet near Vancouver and later expanded to servicing the entire British Columbia coast.
William Alexander Mouat was a British seafarer. Born in London, he spent much of his career with the Hudson's Bay Company in British Columbia on the west coast of Canada. He became master of several merchant ships including the Otter and the Labouchere. His last posting was at Fort Rupert where he died in a canoe accident. He was married to Mary Ann Ainsley and they had eight children.
For more than 35 years, from 1923 to 1958, the Union steamship Cardena sailed the British Columbia Coast, carrying passengers, groceries, dry goods, industrial cargo, mail and sundry other supplies to the 200 or so mining, logging and fishing communities that once dotted the province's coastline during the early years of the 20th century. On her return voyage, at the peak of the summer fishing season, Cardena routinely carried thousands of cases of canned salmon to the railheads at Prince Rupert and Vancouver for shipment across Canada and around the world. And so it went for the better part of half a century; a regular and reliable marine service that made Cardena a coastal institution, remembered with affection and regard by the countless men, women and children who inhabited those tiny outports in a bygone era.
Comox was a steamship built in 1891 in British Columbia which served until 1920. Comox was the first steel ship built on the west coast of North America north of San Francisco.
Cutch was a steamship built in 1884 in Hull, England. The ship served as a pilgrimage vessel and a yacht in India from 1884 to 1890, then as a steamship in British Columbia from 1890 to 1900 under the ownership of the Union Steamship Company. The ship was wrecked in August 1900, then salvaged and registered in the United States as Jessie Banning. In 1902 the ship was transferred to the navy of Colombia where it was armed with cannon and served in the Colombian navy as the gunboat Bogota. Bogota shelled the city of Panama on November 3, 1903 during the secession of Panama from Colombia.
Lady Alexandra was a steamship built in 1924 in Montrose, Scotland which served in British Columbia from 1924 to 1952, mostly on Howe Sound.
Cheslakee was a steamship that operated from 1910 to 1913 under the ownership of the Union Steamship Company of British Columbia. In 1913, the ship sank, killing seven people. This was the only accident involving a passenger fatality in the 70-year history (1889-1959) of the Union Steamship Company. Following the sinking Cheslakee was raised, reconstructed, and launched again under a different name.
Cowichan was a steamship which was operated in British Columbia under the ownership of the Union Steamship Company. Cowichan sank in 1925 following a collision with another ship.
Princess Louise was a sidewheel steamboat built in 1869. From 1869 to 1879 this ship was named Olympia. In 1879 the name was changed to Princess Louise, after Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll, a daughter of Queen Victoria who was married to Marquess of Lorne (1845-1914), Governor General of Canada from 1878 to 1883. Princess Louise was the last sidewheeler to be operated commercially on the coast of British Columbia.
Cheakamus was a steamship built in 1913 in North Vancouver, British Columbia. This ship was originally built as the Cheslakee in Scotland. After Cheslakee capsized in 1913, the hulk was raised, lengthened, and placed back into service as Cheakamus.
Lady Cynthia was a steel-hulled passenger ship converted from a minesweeper,, which served in the coastal waters of British Columbia from 1925 to 1957. Lady Cynthia was a sistership to Lady Cecilia, also a converted minesweeper. The ship was generally referred to as the Cynthia while in service.
Chelosin was a steel-hulled, steam-powered passenger-freighter vessel that served in coastal British Columbia from 1911 to 1949, under the ownership of the Union Steamship Company of British Columbia.
Chasina was an iron-hulled, steam-powered ship, originally built as a steam yacht, but later converted to a passenger-freighter vessel that served in coastal British Columbia and other areas during the early decades of the 1900s under the ownership several different companies. The ship disappeared in 1931 after leaving Hong Kong.
References
Henry, Tom, The Good Company – An Affectionate History of the Union Steamships, Harbour Publishing, Madeira Park, British Columbia (1994) ISBN1-55017-111-9
Newell, Gordon R., H.W. McCurdy Marine History of the Pacific Northwest, Superior Publishing, Seattle, Washington (1966).
Rushton, Gerald A., Whistle up the Inlet – The Union Steamship Story, J.J. Douglas, Vancouver, British Columbia (1974).
Rushton, Gerald A., Echoes of the Whistle – An Illustrated History of the Union Steamship Company, Douglas & McIntyre, Vancouver, British Columbia (1980) ISBN0-88894-286-9
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