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Samson V Snagboat article content ... The Samson V is a wooden steam-powered sternwheeler snagboat preseved as a museum on the Fraser River in in New Westminster, B.C., Canada. The Samson V was built in New Westminster in 1937 by Mercer Brother’s Star Shipyards for the Canadian federal Department of Public Works for use as a snag boat on the Fraser River. The Department of Public Works had been operating a series of snag boats named Samson on the Fraser River since 1884. These were all Western Rivers type sternwheelers but of heavier construction than the passenger type and built with square scow-bows to accommodate a large A-frame and steam-winch on the foredeck.

The Samson series of vessels were responsible for clearing the river of snags and debris, setting and maintaining the system of aids to navigation on the lower Fraser under contract to the Department of Transport, maintaining the system of government docks on the river, surveying the river and performing other tasks as needed. A significant part of the Samson series of vessels’ job, although not officially mandated, was clearing snags for fishermen to facilitate the gillnet fishery on the Fraser from the pioneer period into the 1970s. The Samson V worked on the river until October of 1980 performing substantially the same tasks as its predecessors had for nearly a century.

The Samson V was substantially rebuilt following a serious fire in 1954 and returned to service in 1960. When she was retired, the Samson V was the last steam-powered sternwheeler operating in Canada. Of the extant steam powered sternwheelers in Canada, the Samson V is the only one that has been preserved afloat and the only intact example of the snag boat type. After being rebuilt at Mercer’s Star Shipyards, the Samson V remained substantially unchanged for the remainder of her service life other that having her lifeboats removed and replaced by an inflatable life raft circa-1974. The Samson today is in much the same condition as she was at the time of her retirement in 1980.