Barge often refers to a flat-bottomed inland waterway vessel which does not have its own means of mechanical propulsion. The first modern barges were pulled by tugs, but on inland waterways, most are pushed by pusher boats, or other vessels. The term barge has a rich history, and therefore there are many other types of barges.
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.
Fort Smith is a town in the South Slave Region of the Northwest Territories (NWT), Canada. It is located in the southeastern portion of the Northwest Territories, on the Slave River and adjacent to the Alberta border along the 60th parallel north.
The Slave River is a Canadian river that flows from the confluence of the Rivière des Rochers and Peace River in northeastern Alberta and runs into Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories. The river's name is thought to derive from the name for the Slavey group of the Dene First Nations, Deh Gah Gotʼine, in the Athabaskan languages. The Chipewyan had displaced other native people from this region.
The Radium King was built in 1937 to haul ore on the Mackenzie River, and her tributaries. This included uranium used in the US atom bombs of World War II. Later in her active career she hauled barges on Great Slave Lake.
Fur brigades were convoys of canoes and boats used to transport supplies, trading goods and furs in the North American fur trade industry. Much of it consisted of native fur trappers, most of whom were Métis, and fur traders who traveled between their home trading posts and a larger Hudson's Bay Company or Northwest Company post in order to supply the inland post with goods and supply the coastal post with furs.
Russel Brothers Limited was a Canadian steel boat builder, diesel engine manufacturer and steel fabricator. The company operated in Fort Frances, Ontario from 1907 to 1937 and then in Owen Sound, Ontario from 1937 to 1994.
William Lyon Mackenzie, is a fireboat operated by Toronto Fire Services (TFS) which provides marine fire fighting and icebreaking capabilities within the Toronto Harbour. Built by Russel Brothers in 1964, it is named after William Lyon Mackenzie, the first mayor of Toronto. In 2004 the fireboat was refurbished and it is expected to be in service until 2037.
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.
The Mackenzie River in Canada's Northwest Territories is a historic waterway, used for centuries by Indigenous peoples, specifically the Dene, as a travel and hunting corridor. Also known as the Deh Cho, it is part of a larger watershed that includes the Slave, Athabasca, and Peace rivers extending from northern Alberta. In the 1780s, Peter Pond, a trader with the North West Company became the first known European to visit this watershed and begin viable trade with the Athapascan-speaking Dene of these rivers. The Mackenzie River itself, the great waterway extending to the Arctic Ocean, was first put on European maps by Alexander Mackenzie in 1789, the Scottish trader who explored the river. The watershed thus became a vital part of the North American fur trade, and before the advent of the airplane or road networks, the river was the only communication link between northern trading posts and the south. Water travel increased in the late 19th century as traders, dominated primarily by the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), looked to increase water services in the Mackenzie River District.
Marine Transportation Services (MTS) formerly Northern Transportation Company Limited (NTCL) is a marine transportation company operating primarily in the Mackenzie River watershed of the Northwest Territories and northern Alberta, and the Arctic Ocean using a fleet of diesel tug boats and shallow-draft barges. NTCL filed for bankruptcy in 2016 and its assets were acquired by the Government of the Northwest Territories later that year.
Waterways is a locality within the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo in northern Alberta, Canada. It is now a neighbourhood within the Fort McMurray urban service area along the west bank of the Clearwater River, south of the river's confluence with the Athabasca River.
The Radium Queen and her sister ship the Radium King were built in Sorel, Quebec in 1937, for the Northern Transportation Company, a subsidiary of Eldorado Gold Mines. The Radium Queen was a cargo/tug ship that served on the Slave River. It made runs between Lake Athabaska and Great Slave Lake which is generally navigable. The Radium Queen towed barges from the railhead at Waterways, Alberta to a portage around the rapids. Cargo was unloaded there and transported by land, and loaded on barges on the lower river that were towed by the Radium King, and later by other tugboats, like the Radium Charles, Radium Express and Radium Yellowknife.
The Pilot II was a buoy tender operated by Canada's Ministry of Transport on Great Slave Lake and the rest of the Mackenzie River system in the Northwest Territories.
The Radium Yellowknife is a Canadian tugboat. Like other vessels built for service on the MacKenzie River, its tributaries, and Great Bear Lake and Great Slave Lake, she was first built in a shipyard in Vancouver, British Columbia, then disassembled and shipped by rail to Waterways, Alberta. There she was reassembled and launched into Clearwater River on August 18, 1948 - late in the season, as the rivers used to freeze in late September or early October. Her reassembly was delayed initially by floods in the Fraser valley in May hindering transport, and then by a derailment of several of the railway cars carrying her components. After launch, she sailed to the portage on the Slave River at Fort Smith, Northwest Territories and was dragged overland across the portage to the lower river, where she could then access the Great Slave Lake, the MacKenzie River, and the Beaufort Sea.
The Marquette Transportation Company is a marine transportation company based in Paducah, Kentucky, United States.
The Radium Cruiser was a Russel Brothers tugboat operated on the Mackenzie River system for the "Radium Line". She was constructed in Owen Sound, Ontario, in 1939, then disassembled and shipped by rail to Waterways, Alberta. Waterways is a river port, and was then the northern terminus of the North American railway grid. Waterways is on the Clearwater River, not far upstream from where the river empties into Lake Athabasca. The waters of Lake Athabasca flow into Great Slave Lake down the Slave River, and then down the Mackenzie River to the Arctic Ocean.
The Radium Gilbert was a tugboat built for transporting supplies to, and ore from, the radium and uranium mines in Canada's Northwest Territories. Like the other tugs in the Radium Line she was steel-hulled.
The Radium Prospector was a tugboat operated by the Northern Transportation Company's "Radium Line", on the tributaries of the Mackenzie River in Canada. She was launched in 1956. Many of her sister ships also included "Radium" in their name, hence the appellation "Radium line".
Radium Franklin was a tugboat built in 1951, and operated by the Northern Transportation Company - popularly known as the "Radium Line", because many of their tugboats contained Radium in their name, since they were originally built to haul Uranium ore from Port Radium, on Great Bear Lake. She was retired in 1979, after spending most of her career hauling barge packed with ore, and then briefly serving as a yard tug.
