END OF AN ERA Last of stern om Ae 9 mers By W. C. MUIR Way for Proctor. In my pocket was a ticket it had taken two days of phone calls to get, entitling me to passage 9n the last of British Columbia’s paddlewheel steamboats, the S.S. Moyie. _ As I wheeled the A.40 along the lakeshore between the Nelson ferry and the Harrop ferry, my mind drifted ack to my first experience with a lake steamer. It was years ago upon my arrival in the Kootenays. At a time when cars were not too plentiful and still, Considered more or less a lux- ury, and, when a 20; or 30 mile ‘ip on a Sunday was some- thing to look forward to, my father decided on a tour from Saskatchewan to B.C. — a fete at rated us among the pion- er tourists. At Kushanook, the road led 4S to'a wharf and inquiries en- lightened my parents to the act that the rest of our jour- Ney to Nelson would be by Steamer. A Boy-like, I viewed this in Much the same delight as a Present day youngster might View having his father’s car Put on a plane in order to com- Plete a journey. Tam not certain which stern- Wheeler it was, but I think it Was the §S.S. Nasookin that® Pulled in late that afternoon. Tecan plainly recall my ner- Yous mother flatly refusing to driven down the wharf and Not daring to watch as my her manoeuyred the Willys Verland 90 into the not too *fge a freight door in the at’s side. Seeing our touring Model automobile with its run- ting board luggage racks tuck- “ In alongside the boiler, of fourse, added to my delight the occasion. : 5° 8 eeu © pone last lap of my trip to poctor was rough, being over constructed road between oP and Proctor. It also Ne td be hurried as tha small RE rop ferry had been pressed ; handle the early morning aritic headed to see the -last tiling of the S.S. Moyie. Like the rest of the passen- ae Once on board, my first th Was to take a tour over Ne ship. / ta I did, I recalled how in i € thirties the CPR had in- -8Urated moonlight excur- dn on the lake boats in an ,, ort to keep up business. It te On such) an excursion that pare er with a pretty young nner had made my last trip the Moyie. ah, here had been dancing of td as well as the attraction sh Watching the twinkling 1 e-lights from deck chairs. cat, Speed was sufficient to Ware a welcome breeze on the ae July night. The cruise ang frony Nelson to Ainsworth fey.”2 returned about 4 a.m. Dare that after escorting my ner home, I. barely had ~ time to have breakfast and get to work and that the lack of sleep seemed of Htle conse- quence. The ship’s, whistle gave a loud hoot and as the gangplank was hauled in, a series of sig- nal bells could be heard from the engine room below. The Moyie was off to Lardeau and all ports of call for the last scheduled trip after 59 years of lake service. Most of the passengers had fought for a ticket on this last trip because the Moyie had meant something to them, and whila it was an excursion that they were on, one could see by the faces of many that they had a feeling of its being a funeral. To some, in years gone by, before the, advent of highway travel and .while the railroad still had a series of broken links, the Moyie, and her sis- ter ships the Nakookin, Kuska- nook and Kokanee, had been their only contact with the outside world. They either had been, or still were, living in one of the many settlements along the 70 mile long lake. The lake steamers brought in all their supplies and took out all their produce. If the settlement was too small to warrant a wharf, then these boats, specially designed to draw little water and man- euvre through treacherous nar- rows, loaded the supplies on the beach of a nearby cove. Now, of course, at all these ports of call she was being met by old timers and new- comers alike, all with friendly greetings and well wishes to the crew. Some, I am sure, had gone out of.their way to order some item to be sure that Moyie would land on this, its last trip. At Ainsworth, a woman brought a horse to the wharf. It was kept alive for the oc- casion as he had; been brought in as a colt on the Moyie 25 year ago. He was scheduled to go to the evergreen pastures the following week. At Riondel, like all ports of call, she was met by a battery of cameras of every size and description, color, movie and box. ere the Moyie had pushed many a barge load of concen- _trates and ore. wheelers is _ After an early breakfast in Nelson, I hit the high-. beached The S.S. Moyie, last of the sternwheelers, makes her last run on Kootenay Lake. The Bluebell Mine head frame could be seen behind the Bluebell Mill a short distance from the shore. Early explor- ers, it is claimed, made gun shot from the lead outcropping and it probably is entiled to the claim of being the first mine worked in the province. a a x The Moyie had played a ma- jor part in the development of mines up and down the lake. She had seen them open and close quite a few times in her 59 years on the lake. She had brought in the miners and she had brought in their union or- ganizers, both for the old Wes- tern Federation of Miners and its successor, the Mine Mill and Smelterworkers Union. She had brought the mine equip- ment and she had barged the products. Likewise she was no less im- portant to the loggers and the growers. She had carried the world-famous Kaslo cherries out to early markets and trans- ported the finest apples of the Kootenays. She had taken many a sports- ynan to the Lardeau country and brought them back with proud catches of fish and game. The sound of her deep whistle had echoed and rolled off the rugged mountains that majestically tower from the lake shore, more often than any other sound in the history of the Koatenays. She was her- self truly history and one o couldn’t help but wish that her cabin walls could talk. Without a doubt every trend in the province and ev- ery crisis of the nation had been argued in her cabins and parlors. She had carried poli- tical candidates, MPs and MLAs of every party, and had seen many a government rise and fall during the years her bow cleaved the lake’s surface. x xt 5 At Kaslo business in the town shut down and there was a ceremony complete with flags, band, fire brigade and ribbon-throwing songstresses. A presentation was made to to the captain and his crew. The ship was boarded by townspeople who staked their claim to her as a historic mu- seum to be beached on their city’s shore for posterity by pinning a notice on the official bulletin board. At the sight of big crowds on the wharf and embankment at Kaslo, an elderly passenger remarked. “This is just like old times.” And it was true, for there .was a time when the boat’s landing was a big event. There were few sights pret- tier than the steamer coming around the bend, especially at night when the water’s ripple would reflect her cabin lights a thousand times. People crowded the landings every- where to watch her come in during bygone years. MAY 10, 1957 — Many of the crew were old hands of the lake services who had been transferred from lake to lake as boati runs went down. Their attachment to the service was apparent and they made no boneg about its being a sad day. They were all hopeful of get- ting on the tug boat, Grant- all, which will still do the re- maining freight and _ barge work, but it was a foregone conclusion that there probably wouldn’t be jobs for all. As these boats had been beached, so crew members had been bumped, and first mates had been demoted to deck hands. Passenger John T. Brown was a miner who had come into the Kootenay 57 years ago on the Moyie on the final lap of his migration from Lancashire, England. Another oldtimer had watched her launching in 1898 at Nelson and had been one of her first pasesngers. Returning to Proctor, the SS Moyie took on her last shovel full of coal and sailed out of the Kootenays’ past at about 5:30 p.m. April 27, 1957. It was the end of a wonderful trip and the end of a never-to-be forgotten era that had to give way to diesel trains, highways pleasure launches and planes. But some predict that as the _ Kootenays continue to develop we shall be installing locks and dams in order to bring back inland water transportation such as they have already done in Europe. PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 5 ———— ————————————————————— —