Alligators of the North: The Story of the West & Peachey Steam Warping Tugs

Gordon Turner is the author of Empress of Britain: Canadian Pacific’s
Greatest Ship and the editor of SeaFare, a quarterly newsletter on sea
travel.

The alligators in the title were small tugs that used their powerful winches to pull themselves out of lakes and travel overland to the next waterway where they would resume their duties of towing log booms to their next destination. Between 1889 and 1929 more than 200 were manufactured in Simcoe, Ontario, by the engineering form of West and Peachey. Most were destined to serve logging companies in Ontario and Quebec, where their versatility and operating costs made them economically feasible in the rugged terrain.

West and Peachey had a virtual monopoly on the construction of alligators until the 1920s. To get them from factory to final location, they were typically loaded in sections onto railway flatbed cars at Simcoe and sent to the station closest to their destination, after which horse-drawn sleighs hauled the sections over winter logging roads to the lake or river where they were assembled by West and Peachey employees.

The authors of this well-illustrated book have written a remarkably thorough history of the alligator tug. Their research includes not only the history of each individual tug but the book also gives a detailed account of the alligator's origins, a description of the methods of construction, and information on the engines, boilers and winches that were installed in this useful vessel. Some of the accounts are quite technical and at times--but not always--the authors have attempted to explain the technicalities in terms more understandable to the layman.

A jarring note is the invariable use of the modern number sign (#) to precede the identification numeral assigned to the tugs by the manufacturer rather than "no." that was the customary abbreviation for "number" when the tugs were built.

Still, it is difficult to imagine a more complete history of alligator tugs than this volume, and no doubt it will appeal strongly to anyone with an interest in Canadian logging and in a now-obsolete yet fascinating technology.