BC & Yukon Lake & River Stern Wheelers

[Low Light Mike]

Sean:

You could also go to the Vernon museum, as they might have some books there for sale.....as well as other info. The "Okanagan Landing" area of Vernon is named "landing" for a reason....so there's likely a lot of lake-boat history in Vernon, as well as Kelowna & Penticton.

You've likely seen the Sicamous ship at the beach in Penticton....

[Queen of Nanaimo Teen]

I have already purchased the book "sternwheelers and steam tugs" and i am waiting fo it to come in the mail. I will probably buy that other one when I have a little more money!

[Emory Lindgard]

Here is article on Steamboats of the Yukon.

It from theArchaeology Magazine for Dec 2007

www.archaeology.org/0711/abstracts/yukon.html

Texas A&M has an Institute of Nautical Archaelogy are tying to
document the vessels before they disappear.

One of them is near Lake LaBarge.

Emory on Whidbey

[Low Light Mike]

Jul 13, 2008 22:52:19 GMT -8 WettCoast said:

The vessel in the photos above is the SS Klondike.





For more info go to: www.pc.gc.ca/lhn-nhs/yt/ssklondike/index_e.asp

For more photos taken on my recent trip to northern BC, the Yukon & Alaska go the lake and river boat section of my photo site s90.photobucket.com/albums/k268/wetcoastkidjst/River%20-%20Lake%20Boats/

Here are a couple of samples:


SS Tarahne; BYNC, Atlin - 1 July 2008


SS Tutshi remains (most of this vessel was lost in 1996 due to fire) - Carcross, Yukon - 7 July 2008

All vessels were once operated on either the Yukon River, Tagish Lake, or Atlin Lake by BYN (the British Yukon Navigation Company, a division of White Pass & Yukon Route. All photos are © jst.

[lmtengs]

A photo of the SS Samson V in Pitt Lake, circa 1957:
www.bcarchives.gov.bc.ca/cgi-bin/www2i/.visual/img_med/dir_126/e_02065.gif

[Low Light Mike]

New thread, at Wett Coast's suggestion. Have fun.

[WettCoast]

Here is a photo that I took of the SS Tutshi at Carcross, Yukon in August of 1985. This, obviously, was taken before the fire.


photo © JST & hosted on my Flickr photo site[/size][/color]

The Tutshi operated on Tagish Lake in the southern Yukon and north western BC. A long journey east and south along this lake took the ship and its passengers to a narrow neck of land separating Tagish Lake from Atlin Lake. At that point a short portage railway was constructed allowing passengers to cross over to Atlin Lake where they transferred onto the SS Tarahne to complete the trip to Atlin, BC. See a photo of the Tarahne in one of the posts above.

Some say that this corner of BC is the most beautiful place in the whole province and I think that they just might be right.

[alaskanmohican]

That is a nice photo of the Tutshi, I was able to tour her freight deck before she burned. I was still pretty young so I remember very little about her except that she got me interested in paddlewheelers.

Up thread is a picture of the Klondike II in Whitehorse,YT. Parks Canada does tours of her in the summer. They did an amazing job of not only restoring her to her 1937 appearance, when she was built, but also of recreating the time period with the furnishings and magazines and other trappings throughout the ship.

Here are some pictures from a tour (FYI long post),

An external shot, note the US flag flying from the bow, it was the 4th of July when the pic was taken. A friendly gesture among friends.



The Observation Lounge.



Pursers Office, also his cabin.



The Dining Saloon.



"The table's spread, come, let us dine, my friend"--from the steamers menu.



A typical 3 berth cabin on the Klondike, a single upper bunk and double lower bunk.



Looking forward on the port side passenger deck.



The Galley.



The ships wheel in the pilot house. The large ships wheel was typically not used for steering although it could be. The Klondike had hydrolic steering so the pilot would use the foot and a half long lever sticking out towards the camera in the middle of the picture. This was a more responsive way of steering the boat in the fast flowing Yukon River.
The smaller steering wheel near the top was for a large search light located on the front of the superstructure. This wheel could be used to direct the light so that the steamer could navigate the river at night. The large light looks like a large white box with a yellow circle on the front. The yellow circle is a cover over the light when it is not in use.



The Pilot House.



Outside the Observation Lounge found forward on the passenger deck.



Finally, the lawn mower aka the paddlewheel of the Klondike.

[Low Light Mike]

Here's an obituary story for a man who made models of the Kootenay Lake sternwheelers.

- pictures included.
www.bclocalnews.com/news/121355643.html


text of obit story:

By Greg Nesteroff - Nelson Star
Published: May 05, 2011 3:00 PM
Updated: May 05, 2011 4:02 PM

Bert Learmonth, a meticulous model builder who created astonishingly detailed replicas of Kootenay Lake sternwheelers and other lost forms of local transportation, has died at 85.

Combining his love of historic boats with his woodworking talents, he rebuilt the lake’s entire fleet in miniature, as well as scale versions of local ferries, buses, and streetcars.

The results were displayed at his home as well as in local museums, and in recent years complemented an exhibition of Alec Garner sternwheeler paintings at Touchstones Nelson.

“The level of detail and how real they look is incredible,” says retired Nelson archivist and museum curator Shawn Lamb. “Inside those sternwheelers was just as beautiful as outside.”

On one occasion, Learmonth photographed a patch of rug similar to one found in a lady’s salon aboard one of the boats, and pasted it on his model’s floor.

“And the staircases and bannisters and posts,” Lamb says. “Dishes on the table. Shelving with things in it. Flags. Everything meticulously researched and beautifully done. Just amazing.”

Learmonth worked from plans supplied by his friend Bill Curran, whose father ran the Nelson shipyard. If those were unavailable, he relied on photographs and his own knowledge.

“He had been on a lot of the boats himself and knew them well,” Lamb says. “He could judge whether it looked right.”

When another model builder created a replica SS Moyie, “Bert was very critical because he said it wasn’t right. He said you can’t just do it from a book. You have to have the right feel.”

In a 1998 interview, he recalled his fascination with the sternwheelers of his youth.

“The sound of the steam engines in the boats was one of a kind,” he said. “There was a little swish from the paddlewheel too. It’s special, something I’ll never forget.”

Learmonth was born at Willow Point in 1924, the eldest of three children of John and Alice Learmonth. His grandfather worked on the lake boats, while his father had a series of local bus lines, which he sold in 1929 to a company that later became Greyhound Canada.

(Unhappy with a book on Greyhound’s beginnings that gave this area short shrift, Bert wrote his own history of Kootenay bus transportation.)

Bert served in the navy during World War II, then worked as a heavy machinery contractor and carpenter before joining the local school district as a maintenance man and bus driver.

Woodwork was long his hobby — as a child he whittled boats out of bark — but it wasn’t until a few years before his retirement in 1987 that he built his first model using wood from a large weeping willow felled on his property. It had just the right combination of strength, weight, pliability, and texture. He supplemented it with all sorts of recycled and scavanged parts.

Over the ensuing years, Learmonth reproduced every major vessel on Kootenay Lake and also built models of his father’s bus fleet, a horse-drawn coal wagon, Nelson’s streetcars, and the Cottonwood Falls power plant, among others.

Although he received some commissions — including one of the SS Moyie that was presented to Nelson’s sister city of Shuzenji, Japan — the bulk of his prodigious output was done for no pay and was proudly exhibited in a private museum adjacent to his longtime Willow Point home.

“The guest book is just incredible,” his son Vic says. “I used to go to China a lot with the outfit I worked for, and lots of people from all over the world came here. There were tons of guys from China and Japan who were just fascinated with it.”

Some of the models had remote controlled motors, and Vic says his father enjoyed taking them down to the lake and sailing them.

Learmonth, who passed away Sunday, was also heavily involved with the Boy Scouts and played drums in the Nelson City Band.

In addition to Vic, he’s survived by Mary, his wife of over 60 years, who painted backdrops for his models, as well as children Bob and Suzanne, sisters Marge and Marion, and many grandchildren and great grandchildren.

A celebration of his life will be held tomorrow from 2 to 5 p.m. at 2652 Six Mile Lakes Road.

[mrdot]

:)thanks to mike / aka mr horn, for posting this very interesting item, as I age, it is nice to know that other ship enthusasts and model makers are recorded for posterity! mrdot.

[Low Light Mike]

Seen at the Royal BC Museum in Victoria:

- a dinner menu from the BC Lake & River Service of Canadian Pacific.

[Low Light Mike]

A display at the Royal BC Museum in Victoria

[WettCoast]

Here is another old photo showing the aft end of the S/S Moyie that I took at Kaslo, BC in May of 1973. At the time I was a tree planter working the summer with the BC Forest Service.


photo © JST & hosted on my Flickr photo site[/size][/color]

At that time the Moyie was sitting above high water on the beach. It was opened as a museum ship at that time (although not on the day I took this photo). The restoration of the Moyie had not yet started, as far as I know.

If I could go back in time I would lave to do a cruise around Kootenay Lake on this beautiful vessel.

[WettCoast]

This photo takes us back to Penticton & Okanagan Lake in 1978. It shows one-time CPR lake boat, the S/S Sicamous, on the beach at that south Okanagan city.


SS Sicamous on Okanagan Lake Beach @ Penticton, BC - 11 May 1978 [photo © JST - Fujichrome 78-10-09 - Nikon-VueScan] by Wett Coast, on Flickr

This vessel had two identical sisters - one each operating on the Arrow Lakes (SS Bonnington) & Kootenay Lake (SS Nasookin). For more information get hold of another of Robert Turner's excellent books: Sternwheelers and Steam Tugs - An Illustrated History of the CPR's BC Lake & River Service.

[Low Light Mike]

2 postcards:

Skeena boats.
- Pioneer Postcards


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Sicamous at the wharf in Penticton BC
- Pioneer Postcards


- compare this photo of the in-service Sicamous to the photo a few-posts earlier of the 1970s beached Sicamous, and you'll notice that the deck below the bridge was removed, later in her service life.

[WettCoast]

SS Moyie - preserved as a National Historic Site @ Kaslo, Kootenay Lake, BC - photo taken around about August of 2000.

photo © Mr. DOT by Wett Coast, on Flickr[/size]

[Low Light Mike]

The view from the cemetery where my maternal grandparents are buried.
- SS Sicamous and the SS Naramata (steam tug), at Okanagan Lake in Penticton.

[Low Light Mike]

Seen at Nelson, just a few blocks east of the orange bridge.
- a home that includes part of the superstructure of the Kootenay Lake steamer Nasookin.

[Northern Exploration]

Jul 18, 2012 15:32:56 GMT -8 Low Light Mike said:

Seen at Nelson, just a few blocks east of the orange bridge.
- a home that includes part of the superstructure of the Kootenay Lake steamer Nasookin.

That "houseboat" was featured on an episode of Wierd or Strange Homes. I am sure if you googled the name it might pop up on Youtube. If I remember correctly there is beautiful woodwork inside. It also might be on reruns on some of the more obscure cable channels.

wikimapia.org/7808576/SS-Nasookin-house

[Low Light Mike]

CPR sternwheeler SS Sicamous, at Penticton BC, seen on July 18, 2012.



Gotta love that CPR house-flag.

[Low Light Mike]

Model of the MINTO, at the Revelstoke Railway Museum.
- model builders are Mr. Dave Williams and Mr. George Hannah.

[piglet]

If I can make it to the coast this fall I plan on "borrowing" the family slides. Somewhere in them I do believe there are a few shots from the Moyie in service from when my folks where living in the interior.

[Low Light Mike]

Nasookin house, just east of Nelson BC.
- I stopped here on July 18, 2012.










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And a mural on Nelson's Front St. (Hwy 3A):



Close-up of Nasookin, caught in the ice.

[Low Light Mike]

On the grounds of the park that houses the SS Sicamous & SS Naramata in Penticton BC, there is also the stern-saloon of the old SS Okanagan.
- seen July 18, 2012.












And what the whole ship looked like:
- A Robert Turner illustration from page-140 of his book "Sternwheelers and Steam Tugs" (1984 - Sono Nis Press)



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- This is a wonderful park of ship history, preserved for many years and hopefully for many more to come. I think I should put the Sicamous Society on my charity list; they do good work in preserving and presenting this history.

[Low Light Mike]

SS Sicamous seen at Penticton's Okanagan Lake waterfront in the evening on July 18, 2012.
- a wonderful ship, wonderfully preserved by a wonderful society (can you tell that I was impressed?) ;D
----------------

First off, here is a pair of Robert Turner illustrations of the ship in both her configurations. We're all used to the "shorter version" because that's all that most of us have seen in our lifetimes. But the short-version was only around for the final 2 years of her service-life, and those were sparsely used years.
- The plan was to convert her to be primarily a fruit freight boat, and day trip steamer. So the Texas deck was shortened considerably, removing most of the cabins and removing that high-ceiling effect of her dining-room.

(from Robert Turner's book "The Sicamous & The Naramata: Steamboat Days in the Okanagan." 1995 - Sono Nis Press.)

A couple other items of note for her current configuration:
- The deck, from top to bottom are: Wheelhouse, Texas deck, Saloon deck, freight deck, and presumably engine & mechanical stuff below that.
- At the forward end, the Texas-deck has the Ladies saloon. Below that on the saloon-deck is the Men's smoking room.
- Midships on the Saloon deck is the dining room with the ceiling skylights.
- Aft on the Saloon deck is the Ladies observation room.

The original Texas deck, from the original configuration, was completely removed in the 1935 renovation.


Also, you'll notice what looks like radio-wire or guy-wires and various stick-masts on the roof of the Texas Deck and Saloon Deck.
- From page-56 of Robert Turner's "The Sicamous & The Naramata" book, it says about this concerning the 1935 renovation that "...The tall hog-posts, which helped strengthen the hull, had to be lowered, the hog-chains modified."

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My views of the exterior:

Pardon the poor pano-stitch, but this is the best full side view that I could get.



Partial view from the east side



Views of the stern-wheel:






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Views from the breakwater point (or whatever the purpose of the crushed-rock point is)

- With the steam tug Naramata visible on the right side (I'll have a post about her, in a few days)