Template talk:Steamboats British Columbia

Douglas Road/Lakes Route, Kootenay Lake etc.

Just to note I added the Douglas Road link; I don't have any books handy to write up something on the various ships/boats that served on it (on Seton Lake service continued into the 1950s...); I thought of adding Kootenay Lake as a link in the same section, but apparently the links should bev "Steamboats of" so I left off adding Kootenay, Slocan, Okanagan and Kamloops/South Thompson/Shuswap - and North Thompson? - routes. Steamboats of the Stikine River needs yet to be done, and weren't there some on the Peace?Skookum1 (talk) 17:18, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Steamboats of the Lakes Route

I've decided to stub it up soon, wanted your input (mtsmallwood) on a couple of issues. One is I'm going to break it up by the lakes, in series (Tenas/Little Lillooet Lake, Lillooet Lake, Anderson Lake and Seton Lake), but I'm wondering about including vessels known to have made it to Douglas, British Columbia at the head of Harrison Lake, and which were part of Steamboats of the Lower Fraser River but I think some were on dedicated Douglas runs and never went to Yale, the other head of Lower Fraser navigation (until the Scuzzy, that is). Steamboats on Shuswap Lake is tempting, too, but the route includes Kamloops Lake, the South Thompson River, Little Shuswap Lake, the Little River and then Shuswap Lake, so I'm not sure if that title is completely appropriate. Back to the Lakes Route - I will only be able to stub this up for lack of BC history materials where I am now, so data on the size of the various vessels I won't have, although there's some archives photos of some that can be pd-50'd (pd-50 is the Canadian archival photo public domain license)....do you think I should include the Harrison Lake vessels, or should we just assume/consign those to the eventual Lower Fraser article (which is long overdue, btw).Skookum1 (talk) 18:46, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure how this would look, My small idea might be to have separate navboxes for each area, with a cross-reference to the area's navbox within the main . Reason is that if you try to get it all on one navbox, it ends up being one huge navbox and becomes too complicated to be useful. Let me put something together for Arrow Lakes, maybe you can see areas for improvement or reuse on some of the other lakes.Mtsmallwood (talk) 04:00, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

I just discovered I created Vessels of the Lakes Route quite a while ago, never got back to it with vessel details; added the template and other steamboat links.Skookum1 (talk) 19:11, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Steamboat lines/owners

One that's missing is the B.X. Co.; article is Barnard's Express wherever that redirects to; company name shifted over time, Frank Jr.'s name comes up in Volovsek's history of the Columbia/Arrow services in partnership with J.A. Mara, who you'll note I added to the {{Arrow Lakes Steamboats}} in the owners section along with Gustavus Blin-Wright; I should have added Barnard and will later....all these guys had DBA names for their various enterprises, I don't know what Blin-Wright's was in the Kootenays; it was different I think on the upper Fraser and different again for his roadbuilding undertakings; there's others also; I'll see if the online J.B. Kerr bios on historica.ca have anything (linked as refs on Francis Jones Barnard and other early-BC bios in the way of company names; the Columbia and Kootenay Steam Navigation Company or whatever it is should definitely be on there, and others mentioned on Volovsek's pages...I know you'd like to wait to add links until they can be bluelinks, though (and sorry to redlink-up the other template; it's to give an idea of its eventual/size layout and also lay out what yet has to be written....Steamboats of the Peace and Finlay Rivers came to mind, not sure if the Omineca had them too....and if I haven't mentioned it yet, and I don't think it's been written Steamboats of the Yukon River is out of our turf but a worthy undertaking some day. May have even been some on Babine Lake, I think.....btw one of the great what-ifs of Northwest history is, had the British retained the Columbia as the border, and British industrial colonization "really gone at it", it's fascinating to consider an Okanagan-Shuswap canal; like all other 19th Century infrastructure works in BC, from the Douglas Road and Cariboo Road and Lillooet Trail on down, it would have probably been a fiasco, but interesting to contemplate the different development geography that might have resulted. Not sure there's enough water in the Okanagan River for that - maybe before all the water-sucking development north from the border (and that should be of interest to our US-side colleagues re the Columbia basin and its relationship with Canada....). But that's not about steamboats....it just might have been. I'm going to try to dig up ship names for the Kamloops Lake-Thompson-Shuswap run, not sure it was many but there were some; the other thing about all these water routes is not everybody in t he gold/silver rushes took the steamer, they were pretty inventive on their own getting up by water or land; everyone thinks the Cariboo Road carried the miners in; nope, most went overland, on foot; it was them who had the money for the "cushy" coach ride that "went in style" (cramped, bouncy, hot, smelly....ugh). Oh, one interesting tidbit from Volovsek when Columbia (sternwheeler) gets written - among its prominent passengers was Archduke Franz Ferdinand....who unlike von Ribbentrop (?) on Werner "Alvo" von Alvensleben probably did party at the Wigwam Inn with the aristocratic Alvenslebens....this has to do with a query someone left for me at my talkpage.Skookum1 (talk) 05:40, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

PS I'm wondering if titles like "Vessels of XXX" might be safer, given the fact that there's still lots of watercraft on all the bodies/stretches of water concerned....this is a spin off my thoughts about the diesel launch(es) and other non-steamer craft on the Lakes Route lakes....and the lower Fraser River, which has had a whole series of famous tugs, fishboats and barges....maybe all separate articles/templates though, I suppose...for someone else, some day....Skookum1 (talk) 05:45, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

topic headings are more proposals than anything else, whatever is helpful is appropriate. my plan with the blue/red link issue is to get something going fairly quickly on the red links, and give a chart of future development for the topic. I could rather easily prepare a stub articles on each vessel, but my preference is to attempt something more in depth. If you look at

you'll see an example of gradually filling in red links..Mtsmallwood (talk) 12:05, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Historic vessels of the Thompson-Shuswap

Or Historic vessels of the Thompson and Shuswap, maybe; the reason for teh "vessels" title is it turns out some were sail/oar driven (steam boilers being in short supply in those parts in the 1860s); the Marten appears to have been built too late for most lake traffic; I found some info on this page on Seymour Arm which will also help embellish Big Bend Gold Rush, still looking for stuff on the North Thompson boats, which I'm sure there were at least one or two of; I figured "the Thompson" incorporates Kamloops Lake as well as the North and South Thompsons, so gets away with the triple-name problem (four/five-name if Little Shuswap Lk and the Little River are also in the title...); "the Shuswap" as you know in BC terminology refers to the Shuswap Lake area, not the Shuswap River, which is Monashees or Okanagan deepending on who's talking....Anyway I'll tweak the redlinks; if you have better ideas for said title, please change to whatever...Skookum1 (talk) 19:05, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I can't help here, I have not studied this area much, if you look at my article on James W. Troup (steamboat captain) there's some stuff there on this area. I think that old ruffian Mara may have had some dealings on this route.Mtsmallwood (talk) 22:42, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Wow, look what I just found, although it doesn't cover the Big Bend era, just railway-era-on, but nice and thorough; that's just Shuswap Lake-area history, gonna poke around some more, think the Kamloops Museum might have a bunch....Waffling on the "historic vessels" title, might go back to Steamboats of the Thompson and Shuswap (hyphen looks funny/a-stylistic, though it's a common usage) and make excuses for the sail-driven and other non-steam entries.....Skookum1 (talk) 15:04, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Steamboats of the Upper Upper Columbia??

Well, turns out we havee another area article yet to go....see this about a launching at Golden; I suppose Steamboats of the Columbia Valley is the natural title, but probably confusing to south-of-the-line readers; maybe if we can establish Boat Encampment/Mica Creek boats, which maybe went up to Golden the title can be Steamboats of the Big Bend and Columbia Valley....but that still is confusing given both those terms get used downstream....grrr....Anyway I'll dig around, and also give a heads-up back on wherever the main steamboats-in-the-Pacific-Northwest discussion is.....where was that again?Skookum1 (talk) 15:15, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Template:Fraser River steamboats draft

I hope it's OK to use this page for a draft of a Lower Fraser template; if it's inappropriate I'll make a sandbox for it. One reason I decided it needed a draft first is because of its title and what it should bet called; the premise is the Lower Fraser but of course there's the Upper Fraser articles too, though like Thompson-Shuswap when that gets done it's "tributary". the other name issue is whether or not to include harrison Lake and/or Georgia Strait//Gulf of Georgia. I think simple is good; previously I'd given thought to listing those vessels serving port Douglas on the Lakes Route page/template...though once we'vecomplied that there's a good chance the Yale/Port Douglas destination lists are nearly-identical; different wit hteh Straits/Gulf.thoughts on this welcome. In the meantime I found F.W. Howay's histories online at http://www.nosracines.ca so have the list of the first vessels to go upriver (other than the /Otter and Beaver). The layout following is copypasted from the Columbia River steamboats article, so there'll be the occasional errors of non-omission.....

here is the ref page for that first batch of steambaots, inj F.W. Howay's hsitory of the Fraser River mines.Skookum1 (talk) 21:23, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

okay, here's a few edits. Color matches Arrow Lakes route navbox, I arbitrarily chose red and shades of red for British Columbia navboxes, green and shades of green for Washington, and blue and shades of blue for Oregon. I made some changes to ship article red links to conform to Arrow Lakes style, added a couple blue links to steamboat articles, and changed "ports of call" to "landings" which seems more consistent with the terminology used by the steamboat trade. I thought the boats should go first, consistent with the Arrow Lakes navbox, and reorganized accordingly. Also, I commented out but did not delete the links to other BC steamboat routes and other NW routes. At first I thought this was a good idea, but now I think these are starting to really clutter the boxes and I'm trying to figure a way around this problem. Also, the dates for each vessel are a little deceptive, i picked the date the vessel was built rather than the date brought into the area, which except for Beaver and Otter, generally was not before 1858.Mtsmallwood (talk) 03:58, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I'd thought of ""Landings" too while I was out....the list there originally started as just the major ports, hence ports of call; and I forgot Port Couqitlam, though it was not gold rush-era but later, as also Fraser Mills and others....what I thought with these was like with your dates on the ships; the years these lansdings were in service could be shown, if known, or from when anyway; Port Hammond is also later; Derby was Old Fort Langley, but I suppose you knew that (opposite Port Haney). Three's others, the Glen Valley one is now a regional park, Steamboat Landing I think, I'll find out; there was/is also an old Sacramento steamer on the slough just west of Fort Langley, you could see it from the Lougheed on the Albion-Whonnock stretch, that they never got the dough or the license to turn into a tourist vessel; the Samson V Ship Museum or whatever it's called needs an article (in addition the the ship's per se, it's a New West tourist-y thing. and real also. Re the Sacramento, in the Olga Ruskin et al. book on Gassy Jack, she mentions that there were for a while more steamboats on the Fraser than on the Sacramento, and - amazingly - on the Mississippi; not for very long you'd think, and these vessels also were of the same ilk that took on the Stikine and Taku runs when those rushes came ujp, ditto for the Cassiar rush (up the STikine mostly) and Omineca (up the Skeena) Found a good chunk of old-stock BC history from FW Howay at www.nosracines.ca about the Peace River gold rush, which could prove interesting, also an item on the Atlin gold fields which I seen . Atlin Lake kind of falls in the Yukon River steamboat turf, template-wise, once we (if ever) get to to it. I think the Fraser/Sacramento steamboat thing may simply be the direct result of boats bailing out of a depressed California seeking out the new Eldorado. As for fields blanked out, that's fine, I thought thinks were getting template heavy; these should be at least in "hide" state when a page loads, better if we could collapse sections, maybe, as I've se, but I don't know the code.. The Lower Fraser one's much-needed as "core history", and I'm envious of the thorough work our Oregonian friends (or are you down there too?) have put into the Columbia River articles and Puget Sound et al; maritime history is a forgotten part BC of life, or not forgotten so much as never learned by the constant layers of newcomers; same with the company town era (my own upbringing). The whole steamboat era in the southern Interior almost needs a core article, though really it can't be separated from the coastal and Columbia routes/companies/captains etc either; there's one "pictorial history" book around, large pocketbook size, that's kinda neat and has lots of tidbits in it; Famous tugboats and fishboats all need their own articles and templates; but then so does everything else on the planet doesn't it ;-)? Anyway I think Greenville, up by Chilliwack was a landing, and some reserves were too; guess where Seabird Island gets its name from....there's also old steamboat schedules around which list landings in different eras, be neat to find 'em on line somewhere, but........anyway the template was a start really on a set of notes, though I guess it's sandbox time, , though as a plist off this page or my own I don't know what's best; I'd have liked to footnote each one as to where I saw it; for now other than your addition of the Eliza Anderon they're all the first vessels to have Douglas charge them the "sufferance" and fees to ascend the river that Lord Lytton later overturned, so they're a special bunch; the Surprise was the first to reach Yale, there's another - that reached yale, or the first to come back from same as there's a fmaous blown-up one isn't there? (the Yale). There's another one that was first into Douglas - the Umatilla I think, at least with engines running - (others made it by sail)- and also the last in is known sometime in the 1890s - I guess you noted I decide to include the sea-navigable lower pat of the Lakes Route, simpler that way. Vessela woudln't have to have two templates, for instandce. BTW one new contributor is writing on Whonnock, or researching to, and there should be some steamboat info there; the Albion ferries have (an) article(s), I just have to find the links; likewise Barnston I think, or the Vanproject has that on the to-do list anyway. OK, sorry for the long post....here's moreSkookum1 (talk) 14:33, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Daphne Sleigh's People of the Harrison has a lot, as does Frances Decker's Pemberton: History of a Settlement. somewhere else online I saw some detail on Port Douglas I hadn't seen before, and I know there's a great ship-in-port pick or two from there online (pd); and a formal academic study on the palce which I've never read, in archives hard copy only or some libraries;LSE thesis, no less - "A Study in Decline". Sliegh'sbook will have lots on the landings in the Chehalis-through-Rosedale area, probably also at Deroche; I think there was a landing on Nicomen Island, not sure where else though others up towards hopek, maybe Ruby Creek (east of Seabird). Vessels which only ran New West-Victoria I'm not sure about including; they're really Georgia Strait vessels, no? Also I included Boston Bar, Siska, Lytton only because of hte Skuzzy and railway-era vessels the actual CPR landings I'm not sure, Spuzzum's just a guess, the Alexandra Bridge seems obvious for shipments of concrete and cable, though, in Trutch's time as well as later.I don't think any ran to Lillooet, no reason to by that time but there have been dredges and barges up there - gold dredges. I don't know how far south of Alexandria boats were able to come, not to Williams Lake or the wagon road would have ended there....but I think there were some on the mid-Fraser, only small ones, not sure why, no communities to service, only ranches...I'll have to rea rad the Upper Fraser article to wsee what CindyBo had in there frmo her research.; also maybe All Hallows should be on there, too, as it had its own landing, but it also needs an article.......anyway, g'ntie.

misc boat links

• SS Alexandra, c.1865
• SS Alexandra, c.1870
• SS Lady Alexandra, c.1910 (Union Steamships)
• SS Lady Alexandra, c.1927 (Union Steamships)
• SS Lady Alexandra and SS Lady Cecilia at docks in Vancouver, 1920s (Union Steamships) (Wow, wish I knew which pier that was at; it's not the Ballantyne and doesn't look like the B-C Pier. By the looki of the poster in the next link it must have been Union PierSkookum1 (talk) 18:04, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
• Union Steamships excursions poster, 1900s - poster also mentions SS Lady Cynthia
• SS Alexandra, c.1864 (looks like the Beaver in rear right bkgnd)
• SS Lady Alexandra, Bowen Island, 1946 Union Steamships
• SS Lady Alexandra, July 1925 - best shot so far I think. Looks like Snug Cove, Bowen Island. see 2nd link below for comparison.
• SS Lady Alexandra in Vancouer Harbour, 1925 - promotional shot, "ship portrait"
• SS Lady Alexandra at Bowen Island, 1930s

All those found as a result of looking for pics of the Alexandra Suspension Bridge; I wound up finding out which Lady/Princess Alexandra, too - Alexandra of Denmark, that all these were named for. I think - there was another Princess Alexandra born later....in time for the time period involved, i.e. the the later Union Steamships liner, the earlier sternwheeler was definitely name for Alexandra of Denmark. see Princess Alexandra (disambiguation)Skookum1 (talk) 18:04, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

links are great, I've been thinking about Alexandra for some time as an article. On these xlink images, I don't see any problem with them, but Wikipedia has a policy on not having too many links (how many is too many was never really clear to me). I ran into some trouble once with some folks who thought I had too many xlinks in my articles, and ever since I've tried to use images directly whenever I can. (See Steamboats of the Arrow Lakes for an example of gradually getting away from too many xlinks.Mtsmallwood (talk) 22:06, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I guess I didn't explain that all those images are public domain, once stripped/cropped of their BC Archives framres; license to use is {{PD-Canada}}. Most of the pictures on the Skeena and Upper Fraser articles were gotten this way.....Skookum1 (talk) 18:50, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

CPR steamships link(s)

This is in the external links on the Princess Sophia (steamship) page....Skookum1 (talk) 18:49, 30 April 2008 (UTC)