thebravestcanadian

by Sam McBride

This year marks the 125^th anniversary of the S.S. Moyie, the oldest intact passenger sternwheeler in the world, which is lovingly preserved and protected in Kaslo as a National Historic Site.  Now that many of the pioneer-era local newspapers are available online, I thought I would take a look at what was being reported back in 1898 when she launched.

I was interested to see that the ship’s “maiden voyage” was part of a special excursion organized by the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) for West Kootenay community leaders that included train trips on the CPR’s brand new Crowsnest Railway.  The CPR official in charge of the excursion was its Kootenay district freight agent Francis White “Frank” Peters, assisted by Captain James Troup, who had a large role in the building of the Moyie and was in charge of CPR’s lake fleet, and several other company officials. 

Invitations were sent out to members of West Kootenay municipal councils and Boards of Trade as well as press in the region and further afield.  That drew an enthusiastic response, as there was intense interest in this new transportation link that dramatically improved access to and from Canadian markets.  The Moyie and its sister sternwheelers were essential to the new route, as the end-of-rail was at Kootenay Landing at the south end of Kootenay Lake.   

The excursion participants included prominent names from West Kootenay history, such as Colonel E.S. Topping from Trail, J.S.C. Fraser and John Kirkup from Rossland, G.O. Buchanan and G.T. Kane from Kaslo, J.M. Harris from Sandon, and Judge Forin and Frank Fletcher from Nelson.  You wonder how often – if ever — these leaders from that era would be together like this, with a chance to interact and get to know each other.

According to various accounts, there were between 80 and 105 guests on the excursion.  It began with the Moyie leaving Nelson shortly after 8 am on Wednesday, December 7, 1898.  At about 11 am the ship had a quick stop at Pilot Bay to pick up guests from the north part of Kootenay Lake and Slocan Valley who had come from Kaslo on the S.S. Kokanee to join the excursion.  Landing at Kootenay Landing at about 4 pm, they transferred to a special train that included three sleeping cars with porters, which took them to Cranbrook at about 7 pm, where they were greeted by a delegation of Cranbrook businessmen led by lumber merchant Archibald Leitch. (Note from Nelson history: five years later, on April 29, 1903, the same Archie Leitch rushed from Cranbrook on a special CPR recovery train to the site of the Frank Slide disaster to pick up three nieces who miraculously survived the slide, while their parents and four brothers were killed. The family decided that the youngest of the nieces, Marion Leitch, would stay in Cranbrook and be brought up by Archie and his family, while her older sisters went to Manitoba to live with other relatives. With Archie and his wife as legal guardians, Marion went through school in Cranbrook, then studied music in Vancouver, and decided to settle in Nelson B.C., where she would be a prominent teacher of piano lessons from the mid-1920s until retiring in 1971.)

The Cranbrook Board of Trade sponsored a banquet for the visitors that included numerous toasts of thanks and congratulations back and forth.  At that early stage of the new railway there were no dining cars or other food facilities on the trains, so meals were arranged off the train at stops.

After the event wrapped up towards 2 am, the visitors retired to their sleeping cars on the train.  Continuing noise from excited passengers made it hard to get much sleep.   In the morning the train headed to Fernie, with stops along the way to tour coal mines and coke ovens, as smelters in Trail and elsewhere in the region needed a good supply of coke for their operations.  Returning west, the train stopped at about 4 pm at Doris (near Cranbrook), where two-horse and four-horse sleighs would take them about ten miles to Fort Steele, where the local board of trade hosted a banquet at the Vanoster Hotel featuring more toasts, speeches and another ample feast.

Several of the passengers in the horse-drawn sleighs encouraged their drivers to race against other sleighs, just for fun.  Unfortunately, two Rossland guests suffered injuries when their sleigh overturned.  The problems getting to Fort Steele were a reminder that it was the big loser in the routing of the Crowsnest Railway, as the CPR decided late in the project to save money by bypassing the long-established Fort Steele community in favour of the small settlement of Cranbrook where land costs were much lower.  There was talk of a spur line being built to Fort Steele, but that never happened.  By the early 1900s it was a ghost town, destined to become a restored and rebuilt tourist attraction in the 1960s.

Based on the comments during and after the excursion, the participants appreciated it as a learning experience with lots of fun and camaraderie.  According to the Cranbrook Herald, the most popular dinner speaker at the Fort Steele banquet was Reverend Frew, pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Nelson.  He joked that he had taken on the role of chaplain of the travellers, guiding their spiritual and moral protection through the tour.  Frew drew a great round of laughter when he said he found the married men to be the most difficult to handle, and “if I succeeded in keeping them from breaking the whole Ten Commandments my mission was not in vain.”  His estimate that “just one or two” of the men were not total abstainers from liquor was obviously a gross underestimation, based on the great number of toasts by the revellers.

On Friday the 9^th there were further tours for the group during its homeward travel on the rail line to Kootenay Landing, and then sailing the Moyie through the lake to Nelson, stopping at Pilot Bay to drop off Kaslo-bound guests for another boat so they didn’t have to come all the way back north from Nelson.  It was less than two weeks since five lives were lost in the sinking of the S.S City of Ainsworth near Pilot Bay in a fierce storm, so that disaster was likely a topic of conversation for all onboard.

On Saturday, December 10, a meeting was held in the Phair Hotel billiard room in Nelson where organizers and participants reflected on the tour.  On behalf of the participants, Colonel Topping (known as the Father of Trail) presented excursion leader Frank Peters with a silver punch bowl and tea set as a token of appreciation.  Unfortunately, Captain Troup was unable to attend and receive his gift, but three other CPR officials were also honoured with gifts from the travellers.  

In 1931 the expensive construction of the rail line from Kootenay Landing through difficult terrain on the west side of Kootenay Lake towards Nelson was completed.  This substantially reduced travel time on the Crowsnest line.  My dad Leigh was among about a dozen students from Nelson who travelled on the Crowsnest Railway many times in the 1930s and later to get to and from the University of Alberta in Edmonton.  At the same time, his brother Ken and other Nelsonites were taking the CPR’s Kettle Valley Railway west to UBC.

Sadly, sternwheeler transport on Kootenay Lake ended with the last voyage of S.S. Moyie in April 1957.

Peters continued his work as freight agent, which included working out new schedules of rates.  In the summer of 1900, outside of his CPR work he served as the first president of the Nelson Electric Tramway company, which provided much-needed streetcar service for the hilly community.   He was also a member of the exclusive Nelson Club, and active in the Masons as well as curling and other sport associations.

In 1900 the new Nelson streetcar company, known as the Nelson Electric Tramway Company, was having difficulty getting financing from European investors who were wary of investing in such a small, far-away community.  Knowing that Europeans had high regard for the CPR and its amazing achievement of the cross-Canada railway, Frank Peters was elected as the first president of the Nelson Electric Tramway company.  He presided over the official opening of the streetcar service and the development of what would later be known as Lakeside Park, meant to increase ticket revenue for the streetcar company.   Peters’ duties in Nelson ended in late 1900 when the CPR transferred him back to Winnipeg.  He reached executive ranks in the company in 1913 with his appointment as general superintendent of B.C.

Peters began a long railroading career at age 13 in his native Saint John, New Brunswick as a telegraph operator with the Intercolonial Railway.  After gaining experience with a couple of U.S. railroads in the Great Lakes region, he joined the CPR in Winnipeg in 1881 shortly after its incorporation.  He reached executive rank with the company in 1910 with his appointment as B.C. Superintendent in Vancouver.  While in Nelson he was an active member of the Nelson Club as well as the Masons lodge and several sports organizations. 

He enthusiastically took up golf in Vancouver and was president of the prestigious Shaughnessy Golf Club in 1922, and a year later was part of a Shaughnessy golf foursome that included visiting U.S. President Warren Harding, exactly one week before the president’s death from a stroke while visiting San Francisco.

Peters retired from the CPR in 1927 after 46 years with the company, while continuing to serve as a director of the CPR subsidiary Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway.  He died in 1933 after 60 years in the railroad business, and was known as the Grand Old Man of Canadian Railroading.    .