Sternwheelers and Canyon Cats

Ann Turner, formerly the financial and budget manager of the University
of British Columbia Library, is a freelance writer.

The Grand Canyon of the upper Fraser River was a major obstacle to river
transport between Tete Jaune Cache and Fort George (now Prince George)
in the early years of the 20th century. Filled with rapids, dangerous
rocks, and currents, it claimed many lives. Between 1906 and 1914, a
great deal of traffic passed up and down the river through the canyon as
the Grand Trunk Pacific Railroad was being built and settlers were
moving into the area from the east. Scows, rafts, and canoes were used
to move surveyors, contractors, crews, building materials, supplies, and
household goods. Steam-driven sternwheelers carried passengers and
freight.

The Canyon Cats were a small group of daring river pilots who would
undertake to move scows, boats, and rafts through the Grand Canyon for a
substantial fee. Many were killed in the process. Local historian Jack
Boudreau developed a first-hand appreciation of the dangers they faced
when he worked as a riverboat operator there in 1972, moving the cast
and equipment for the movie The Overlanders to locations along the
still-treacherous river. He grew up and worked in the area much of his
life, and developed an interest in its history through personal and
published accounts of pioneer life there. The first book drawn from his
research, Crazy Man’s Creek (1998), became a bestseller.

In Sternwheelers and Canyon Cats, Boudreau uses quotations from the
records of individual travellers, reports in local newspapers, and
historical photographs with great effect to depict the hazards of river
travel and the hardships of life along the upper Fraser in the years
when the area was being opened up. It is a tribute to the courageous
people who lived and died there.