Talk:Steamboats of the Upper Fraser River

Title issue and also...
Capitalization seems to be an issue here; "upper" should be lower-case, I'd say. Just found this page by accident; was already thinking of separate lists of inland-water vessels on various routes in the BC Interior; The Thompson-Shuswap, Kootenay Lake, Atlin Lake, Okanagan Lake, the Skeena, the Lakes Route etc.; also on the New Caledonia rivers as I recall (Nechako, Stuart, Nation, Omineca) and on the Stikine (and Taku?). Just adding this note for later, as I'm not going to tackle the page/article tonight, nor any of the others; currently working on List of ships in British Columbia; this page is properly a list page, though not as currently written; a non-list page IMO would be titled something like "Steamer service on the upper Fraser River (in British Columbia)"; there were more steamers, too, than those already listed on this page.Skookum1 08:20, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

More Steamers?
I wrote the article in the hopes that someone with additional information would be able to add to it and improve upon it, which, even as a Newbie, I realize that is what Wikipedia is all about. I agree with your idea on changing the title and I realize now that the whole Upper {or upper} Fraser River reference will cause confusion. In the Central Interior, we often refer to our section of the Fraser from Soda Creek to Tete Jaune Cache as the Upper Fraser. See: But in BC we certainly do not have a monopoly on the name. In fact after some browsing on the internet I am confused. However, in all of the sources I consulted, there were only twelve steamers ever mentioned in regards this particular section of the Fraser during this time period. I would be very interested in learning about any additional ones and whatever details anyone has on them. I thought it was important for someone to at least make a start on an article on this topic, as there are many others that already exist that have bearing on it and I linked to some of them as I went along. I appreciate any interest and help on this article and would love to learn more myself.--CindyBo 23:43, 24 February 2007 (UTC)


 * It was in one of these three old theses, likely the one on communications, that had mention of Blin-Wright's steamer business, as being part of his contract to build the road, i.e. no farther than Alexandria so as to benefit his steamer business; I would imagine the name of the steamer is in the paper, it's been a while since I read it:

They're all in the SFU library, and obviosly I would imagine in UBC's other than the Foster one; Ferguson is a study of routes, roads, tolls, shipping services, though not a roster of ships like we might hope. Some of the various publications by Garnet Basque and T.W. Paterson might have more on the individual vessels.Skookum1 03:20, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Gold Mining and the Early Development of British Columbia, Winifred Emily Foster, M.A. Thesis (History), University of California, 1936. FC 3822.4F68
 * The Development of Communications in Colonial British Columbia, Helen Ferguson, M.A. Thesis (History), University of British Columbia, 1939 FC 3822 F47
 * Gold and the Early Settlement of British Columbia, Angus MacLeod Gunn, M.A. Thesis (Geography), University of British Columbia, 1961. FC 3822.4 G95 1965 c.1
 * various other research resources you'll find on this sandbox page, and you're welcome to add it it, and other related pages in my sandbox (map archives etc). There's a load more I'll be adding to this page right now, but it's where I'd stored the references pulled just above; there might be more of use to you there, but not for upper Fraser steamers...Skookum1 03:24, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Finally got to it
I got around to laying out this page properly. Now I need to add to the Charlotte and a few of the others. And add pictures.CindyBo 01:38, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I also added in Blin Wright and clarified which two boats he and Thomas Wright owned and operated.CindyBo 03:47, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Also, does anyone know whether it is Steven or Stephen Tingley, I've seen both in fairly reputable sources.CindyBo 08:04, 10 April 2007 (UTC) Sorry, forget I asked. I just saw a picture of his tombstone on google image search. It is Stephen.CindyBo 08:08, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Steamboats of the Lakes Route?
Hi; I'll be "gone" in a very few days but may start a stub article modelled on your Skeena and Upper Fraser articles, as much as I had reservations about them, that will be either Steamboats of the Lakes Route or Steamboats of the Douglas Road; I'm having trouble with "steamboats" because the usual image of one doesn't fit the Minnehaha one little bit - a scow/large dory with a smokestack in the centre, no cover, just regular rower seats; and there's later vessels that I know were diesels and "not steam". So Vessels of.... might be better, but I'm having trouble picking between Lakes Route, Douglas Road, and Lillooet Trail/Douglas-Lillooet Trail; the main article is Douglas Road so it might be odd to have Vessels of the Lakes Route in ref to it; but obviously these weren't on a "road", even though the entire route was a capital-R "Road"; "Lillooet Trail" is also confusable with the Lillooet Cattle Trail (where Lillooet Rd in North Van gets its name from, and its southern end later was known as the Pemberton Trail. Anyway, I may start it at one of these titles and will at least input the names and dates/owners as in my two source books here, but there's more to be written on all of them, including from books I don't have any more or only read without owning (Frances Decker's Pemberton: History of a Settlement being the main one).  So once I've created these, please watch over them and add to them as you can; I'll provide any BC Arch or other pics as applicable.Skookum1 07:08, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Certainly, I'll keep an eye on them and add to them as I can. I'm sure that several of the sternwheelers, steamboats... (or what have you) are notable enough to warrant their own articles too. Oddly, Art Downs categorizes all of your Douglas Road stern- (and side) wheelers like the Marzelle, Lady of the Lake, Champion etc under "Lower Fraser River" in his Paddlewheels books. Obviously some were on both routes, but probably many were not. I imagine he did that for simplicity's sake. For our purposes, I'll try and sift through and find out what was where. I'll have to go find a few books that I don't have right at hand. By the way, have you ever run across anything on the shipbuilders: Alexander Watson Sr and Jr of Victoria? They built many of my upper Fraser boats and some of the Skeena's as well, but I can't find much on them. Oh, and did you want me to add the Skeena sternwheelers to your List of ships in British Columbia as I make the seperate articles for them?CindyBo 23:55, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

No, none of the Lakes Route vessels saw service on the Lower Fraser; they were built on the shores of the lakes in question; Marzelle, Prince of Wales on Lillooet Lake, Lady of the Lake and Minnehaha on Seton, Bluebird and others on Anderson; I'm unaware of, for example, the Marzelle being dismantled and hauled over the Douglas Portage to Lillooet Lake; couldn't have been done (nasty trail in those days....).Skookum1 02:18, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

And yeah, anything that's been created can be added to the Ships in BC List - it was built only off the indices of the Akriggs and Pethick and a couple of other histories I have here, and is incomplete in a big way.Skookum1 02:22, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Added a Navbox
Just a start, but I'm hoping this will help tie all the many PNW/BC steamboat pages together. This is the first navbox I've done, and I took it from another article, hope it is suitable for this topic. Mtsmallwood (talk) 05:29, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Move/rename - simplify
Rename to Steamboats of the Upper Fraser River so as to 1) shorten the title and 2) bring it into stylistic sync with other steamboat-article titles. Not slagging CindyBo's fine work in the slightest, just think the "in British Columbia" is superflous.Skookum1 (talk) 05:48, 10 April 2008 (UTC)