A steamboat is a boat that is propelled primarily by steam power, typically driving propellers or paddlewheels. Steamboats sometimes use the prefix designation SS, S.S. or S/S or PS ; however, these designations are most often used for steamships.
A paddle steamer is a steamship or steamboat powered by a steam engine driving paddle wheels to propel the craft through the water. In antiquity, paddle wheelers followed the development of poles, oars and sails, whereby the first uses were wheelers driven by animals or humans.
A riverboat is a watercraft designed for inland navigation on lakes, rivers, and artificial waterways. They are generally equipped and outfitted as work boats in one of the carrying trades, for freight or people transport, including luxury units constructed for entertainment enterprises, such as lake or harbour tour boats. As larger water craft, virtually all riverboats are especially designed and constructed, or alternatively, constructed with special-purpose features that optimize them as riverine or lake service craft, for instance, dredgers, survey boats, fisheries management craft, fireboats and law enforcement patrol craft.
Many steamboats operated on the Columbia River and its tributaries, in the Pacific Northwest region of North America, from about 1850 to 1981. Major tributaries of the Columbia that formed steamboat routes included the Willamette and Snake rivers. Navigation was impractical between the Snake River and the Canada–US border, due to several rapids, but steamboats also operated along the Wenatchee Reach of the Columbia, in northern Washington, and on the Arrow Lakes of southern British Columbia.
The era of steamboats on the Arrow Lakes and adjoining reaches of the Columbia River is long-gone but was an important part of the history of the West Kootenay and Columbia Country regions of British Columbia Canada. The Arrow Lakes are formed by the Columbia River in southeastern British Columbia. Steamboats were employed on both sides of the border in the upper reaches of the Columbia, linking port towns on either side of the border, and sometimes boats would be built in one country and operated in the other. Tributaries of the Columbia include the Kootenay River which rises in Canada, then flows south into the United States, then bends north again back into Canada, where it widens into Kootenay Lake. As with the Arrow Lakes, steamboats once operated on the Kootenay River and Kootenay Lake.
The Willamette River flows northwards down the Willamette Valley until it meets the Columbia River at a point 101 miles from the Pacific Ocean, in the U.S. state of Oregon.
Steamboats operated on the Wenatchee Reach of the Columbia River from the late 1880s to 1915. The main base of operations was Wenatchee, Washington, located at the confluence of the Wenatchee and Columbia Rivers, 465 miles (748 km) from the mouth of the river. Operations were mainly between Wenatchee and Bridgeport. Rapids below Wenatchee and above Bridgeport prevented safe navigation.
The Coos Bay Mosquito Fleet comprised numerous small steamboats and motor vessels which operated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries on Coos Bay, a large and mostly shallow harbor on the southwest coast of the U.S. state of Oregon, to the north of the Coquille River valley. Coos Bay is the major harbor on the west coast of the United States between San Francisco and the mouth of the Columbia River.
Steamboats on the Yukon River played a role in the development of Alaska and Yukon. Access to the interior of Alaska and Yukon was hindered by large mountains and distance, but the wide Yukon River provided a feasible route. The first steamers on the lower Yukon River were work boats for the Collins Overland Telegraph in 1866 or 1867, with a small steamer called Wilder. The mouth of the Yukon River is far to the west at St. Michael and a journey from Seattle or San Francisco covered some 4,000 miles (6,400 km).
North Star was a sternwheel steamboat that operated in eastern Washington from 1902 to 1904. This vessel should not be confused with the other vessels, some of similar design, also named North Star.
Klahowya was a sternwheel steamer that operated in British Columbia on the Columbia River from 1910 to 1915. The name "Klahowya" is the standard greeting in the Chinook Jargon.
North Star was a sternwheel steamer that operated in western Montana and southeastern British Columbia on the Kootenay and Columbia rivers from 1897 to 1903. The vessel should not be confused with other steamers of the same name, some of which were similarly designed and operated in British Columbia and the U.S. state of Washington.
Gwendoline was a sternwheel steamer that operated on the Kootenay River in British Columbia and northwestern Montana from 1893 to 1898. The vessel was also operated briefly on the Columbia River in the Columbia Valley.
Marion was a small sternwheel steamboat that operated in several waterways in inland British Columbia from 1888 to 1901.
Isabella McCormack was a sternwheel steamboat that operated in British Columbia on the Columbia River from 1908 to 1910.
Pert was a sidewheel steamboat that operated in British Columbia on the Columbia River from 1887 to 1905, often transporting large loads of timber. Pert was also known as Alert and City of Windermere at times.
Francis Patrick Armstrong was a steamboat captain in the East Kootenay region of British Columbia. He also operated steamboats on the Kootenay River in Montana and on the Stikine River in western British Columbia. Steam navigation in the Rocky Mountain Trench which runs through the East Kootenay region was closely linked to Armstrong's personality and career. In addition to being a steamboat captain, Armstrong was also a prospector, white-water boat pilot and guide in the Big Bend country of the Columbia River.
From 1886 to 1920, steamboats ran on the upper reaches of the Columbia and Kootenay in the Rocky Mountain Trench, in western North America. The circumstances of the rivers in the area, and the construction of transcontinental railways across the trench from east to west made steamboat navigation possible.
SS Okanagan was a steamship owned and operated by the Canadian Pacific Railway Lake and River Service. The vessel was constructed in 1906 at Okanagan Landing and launched in 1907, becoming Okanagan Lake's second steamship. She linked the transportation hubs at both the north and south ends of Okanagan Lake (Vernon and Penticton, respectively, aiding the development of interior British Columbia with other steamships of the 1900s. The ship was retired in 1934 and sold for scrap and spare parts. Only the Stern Saloon, a room in the back of the upper deck, remains. It was moved to the SS Sicamous Heritage Park in Penticton in 2002, to undergo restoration work.
La Center was a small stern-wheel steamboat that operated from 1912 to 1931, mostly on the Lewis and Lake rivers in southwest Washington, on a route to and from Portland, Oregon along the lower Columbia and lower Willamette rivers.
