The ''Fort Fraser'' was a small

sternwheeler A paddle steamer is a steamship or steamboat powered by a steam engine that drives paddle wheels to propel the craft through the water. In antiquity, paddle wheelers followed the development of poles, oars and sails, where the first uses were w ...

owned by the Fort George Lumber and Transportation Company a partnership originally held by Nick Clarke and Russell Peden from the Fort George town-site of

South Fort George South Fort George is a suburb of Prince George, British Columbia, Canada. Before the arrival of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway in 1914, the Prince George area was known as Fort George and was a Lheidli T'enneh village and Hudson's Bay Company sto ...

. The ''Fort Fraser'' was intended to be a small prospecting craft that could service not only the

Soda Creek Soda Creek is a rural subdivision 38 km north of Williams Lake in British Columbia, Canada. Located on the east bank of the Fraser River, Soda Creek was originally the home of the Xat'sull First Nation. Soda Creek Indian Reserve No. 1 is ...

to Fort George section of the upper

Fraser River The Fraser River is the longest river within British Columbia, Canada, rising at Fraser Pass near Blackrock Mountain in the Rocky Mountains and flowing for , into the Strait of Georgia just south of the City of Vancouver. The river's annual d ...

but also the

Nechako River The Nechako River arises on the Nechako Plateau east of the Kitimat Ranges of the Coast Mountains of British Columbia, Canada, and flows north toward Fort Fraser, then east to Prince George where it enters the Fraser River. "Nechako" is an angli ...

and some of its tributaries, enabling her to serve her namesake town of Fort Fraser. The ''Fort Fraser'' was launched in late June 1910 and was put under the command of Captain John Bonser, who was transferred from the company's other sternwheeler, the '' Nechacco''. Piloted by Bonser, the ''Fort Fraser'' pioneered the upper reaches of the Fraser River, not only successfully navigating the

Grand Canyon of the Fraser The Grand Canyon of the Fraser is a short gorge on the upper Fraser River in the Robson Valley region of east central British Columbia. The location, about south-southwest of Hutton, became part of the Sugarbowl-Grizzly Den Provincial Park and ...

but also travelling further upriver, thus becoming the first sternwheeler to reach the head of navigation at

Tête Jaune Cache Tête, head in French, may refer to : * ''Tête'' (sculpture), a 1912 work of art by Amedeo Modigliani; one of the most expensive sculptures ever sold * "Je danse dans ma tête", a 1991 song from the Dion chante Plamondon album by Céline Dion * ...

. Because of her small size and ability to travel on rivers that were previously unnavigated, she was often chartered by pioneer

surveyor Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. A land surveying professional is ca ...

Frank Swannell Frank Cyril Swannell (May 16, 1880 in Hamilton, Ontario - 1969 in Victoria) was one of British Columbia's most famous surveyors. He came to British Columbia during the era of the Klondike Gold Rush and became a surveyor's assistant. Then, from ...

. Despite these fine accomplishments, the ''Fort Fraser'' was never considered to have played a large role during the next few hectic years of rail construction, as the

Grand Trunk Pacific Railway The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway was a historic Canadian transcontinental railway running from Fort William, Ontario (now Thunder Bay) to Prince Rupert, British Columbia, a Pacific coast port. East of Winnipeg the line continued as the National Tra ...

crossed the Alberta–BC border in 1912 and made its way towards Fort Fraser, where the last spike would be driven on April 7, 1914. In 1911, Captain Bonser left the ''Fort Fraser'' and returned to the

Skeena River The Skeena River is the second-longest river entirely within British Columbia, Canada (after the Fraser River). Since ancient times, the Skeena has been an important transportation artery, particularly for the Tsimshian and the Gitxsan—whose n ...

to pilot the new sternwheeler, ''Inlander''. The ''Fort Fraser'' was then put under the command of Captain George Ritchie, who was without a ship due to the loss of the ''Nechacco'' that April, in the ice at the Cottonwood Canyon. Under Ritchie's command, the ''Fort Fraser'' would work intermittently until the fall of 1913 when she would be rebuilt and renamed ''Doctor'' after Dr. JK McLennan, a new partner in the company which had also been renamed, and was now the Fort George Lumber and Transportation Company. Outside short local trips, it is not recorded that the ''Fort Fraser'' did any work on the upper Fraser after the fall of 1913.

References

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Notes

{{Steamboats British Columbia Paddle steamers of British Columbia 1910 ships

See also

References

Notes