steam engines manufactured 1877 by Willamette Iron Works of Portland, Oregon, twin single-cylinder, horizontally mounted, 14" bore by 60" stroke, 13 horsepower nominal
Propulsion
sternwheel
Kootenai was a sternwheel steamboat that ran on the Arrow Lakes in British Columbia from 1885 to 1895. Kootenai was the second sternwheeler to run on the Arrow Lakes.[2] This vessel should not be confused with the similarly named Kootenay, an 1897 sternwheeler that also ran on the Arrow Lakes.
The firm of Paquet & Smith built the vessel's frames in Portland, Oregon of Douglas fir. The frames were then shipped to the Little Dalles (now known as Northport), in the Washington Territory on the Columbia River near the border with British Columbia. Once the frames arrived, Henderson and McCartney, contractors for the Canadian Pacific Railway and shipbuilder E.G. Thompson assembled the rest of the hull with planks and timbers sawn on site from the local pine. The steamboat's engines were third hand, having been built in 1877 by Willamette Iron Works in Portland, Oregon, and previously installed in the McMinnville, running on the lower Columbia River, and the Pend Oreille Lake steamer Katie Hallett.[1]
Operations on Arrow Lakes route
Steam navigation on the inland waters of northern inland Washington and southeastern British Columbia was seasonal, and took place generally from May 15 to October 30 of each year. This was because ice or low water blocked river and lake travel at other times. Companies endeavored to launch steamboats early in the year to take advantage of the working season. The launch of Kootenai in late April 1885, and her first voyage in May was an example of this seasonally driven timing.[1][4]
A. F. Pingston, first captain of Kootenai
On May 7, 1885, Captain A.L. Pingston (sometimes spelled "Pingstone") who had also served as captain of Forty-Nine some ten or fifteen years before, took Kootenai on her first trip north up the Columbia River into British Columbia, carrying supplies and building equipment for the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway. This route went north through the lower and upper Arrow Lakes and then further north up the Columbia to the town of Farwell, later known as Revelstoke. Farwell was a key location on the route of the C.P.R. as the place where the transcontinental line crossed the Columbia River. The first run up the river and lakes took Kootenai thirty hours. Other than the Forty-Nine in the 1870s, and the small steam launches Midge and, possibly, Alpha in 1884 and 1885, no other steamboats had made this run. On the first run Captain Pingston had to look for the channel and negotiate work up through rapids by attaching a line to a tree or rock on the bank and cranking the steamer upstream using the capstan. Later trips took less time as the crew and captain became more accustomed to the route.[1][3][4]
On September 4, 1885, Kootenai ran on the rocks at Little Dalles, but was salvaged. Kootenai was laid up for the winter at Little Dalles.[5] Captain Pingston was accidentally shot and killed on April 27, 1886, and Kootenai made only one run to Revelstoke that year, under Capt. Nathaniel Lane. After that, Kootenai was laid up until 1890, when she was purchased by the Columbia and Kootenay Steam Navigation Company for $10,000 in promissory notes. The new owners worked Kootenai in the first part of the season of 1890 as a passenger and freight boat, making enough money in the first few trips to pay off the notes. When the sternwheeler Lytton came into service later in the 1890 season, Kootenai was used mostly as freight boat. Kootenai made 27 trips up and down the lakes in the 1890 season, starting on May 13 and ending on August 12.[1][4]
Sunk, raised, and dismantled
On December 3, 1895 Kootenai ran onto a rock near Bannock Point and Wigwam, BC on Upper Arrow Lake. Although the steamer was floated off, the vessel was not considered worth repairing. Kootenai was towed to Nakusp, BC and dismantled. The steamer's machinery and fittings were used in building the sternwheeler Trail.[1]
Notes
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Affleck, Edward L., A Century of Paddlewheelers in the Pacific Northwest, the Yukon, and Alaska, at 17, Alexander Nicholls Press, Vancouver, BC 2000 ISBN0-920034-08-X
1 2 Turner, Robert D., Sternwheelers and Steam Tugs – An Illustrated History of the Canadian Pacific Railway's British Columbia Lake and River Service, 1, 2, 4, 8, 18, 27, 29, 34, 38, 41, Sono Nis Press, Victoria, BC 1984 ISBN0-919203-15-9
1 2 3 4 Downs, Art, Paddlewheels on the Frontier – The Story of British Columbia and Yukon Sternwheel Steamers, at 116, 117, 122-123, Superior Publishing, Seattle, WA 1972
↑ Downs states that Kootenai continued in service until November 1885
Further reading
Faber, Jim, Steamer's Wake—Voyaging down the old marine highways of Puget Sound, British Columbia, and the Columbia River, Enetai Press, Seattle, WA 1985 ISBN0-9615811-0-7
Timmen, Fritz, Blow for the Landing—A Hundred Years of Steam Navigation on the Waters of the West, Caxton Printers, Caldwell, Idaho ISBN0-87004-221-1
External links
Photographs of Kootenai from the Provincial Archives of British Columbia
Bonnington was a sternwheel steamboat that ran on the Arrow Lakes in British Columbia from 1911 to 1931. Bonnington and two sisterships were the largest sternwheelers ever built in British Columbia. Bonnington was partially dismantled in the 1950s, and later sank, making the vessel the largest freshwater wreck site in British Columbia.
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. 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.
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SS Dispatch was a small sternwheeler that operated from 1888 to 1893 on the Columbia River and Arrow Lakes in British Columbia, Canada. She is sometimes referred to as Despatch, though sources from the time period during which she operated usually utilized Dispatch. Dispatch was the first ship to be built for regular steamboat service on the lower Columbia and the beginning of a long line of steamships that opened the area for development.
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