Kootenay Lake | thebravestcanadian

Learning about the last captain of SS Moyie

December 14, 2024

by Sam McBride

One of my favourite photos from childhood years was taken of me with my cousin Michael Allan (left) and SS Moyie Captain Norm MacLeod on April 23, 1957, in the second-to-last voyage of the Moyie on Kootenay Lake.

Our parents, who rode on the Moyie and other Kootenay sternwheelers many times themselves over the years, knew the trip would be a historic milestone marking the end of an era, which we would enjoy and remember. I remember it was a long day, as the ship went back and forth across the lake many times. It may have been a little shorter than the historic last trip of the last sternwheeler service on the lake on April 27, 1957, reported to have made 13 stops in nine hours. Michael remembers us running around the deck as kids do, probably getting yelled at a few times. Most memorable for me was the cheers and applause of crowds of people at each stop as we were arriving, and as we departed.

Sam McBride (right) beside cousin Michael Allan, with Norman MacLeod at the wheel of the SS Moyie, during the venerable ship’s second-to-last run on Kootenay Lake on April 23, 1957. Photo taken by Michael’s mother Ruth Allan, who sent me a copy of the photo in the early 1990s.

Michael’s grandmother Lillian Maude Allan (1891-1962) frequently travelled on the SS Moyie for several years in the 1940s when she worked as a school teacher in Lardeau and Argenta — two communities at the north end of Kootenay Lake which at the time were not connected by road and could only be accessed by water.

Someone asked me recently what I knew about the captain we posed with. I did not know much about him, so did some online research of provincial vital statistic records, and of the Nelson Daily News, as well as books and visitor information from the Kootenay Lake Historical Society. Other versions of the spelling of his last name are McLeod and Macleod.

Fascinating to see that MacLeod served on the Moyie for 35 years, the last 10 as captain. He was born in 1895 in Arnol in the distant Isle of Lewis in the Hebrides off the northwest coast of Scotland. Both his parents were also born in Arnol. He served in the Royal Navy reserve in World War One, and came to Canada in 1923, settling in Procter, about 22 miles from Nelson, British Columbia on the West Arm of Kootenay Lake. He returned to Scotland in 1928 to marry Annie MacLeod, who returned with him to Procter, where they raised their family that would include son Donald Macleod and daughter Christine Macleod.

After the Moyie, Norman worked as captain of the tug Granthall before retiring from the CP Railway Steamboat Service in 1959. He died at age 70 in Kootenay Lake General Hospital in Nelson on June 8, 1966.

More details of his life are in the June 9, 1966 Daily News obituary story attached here. Also in “Kootenay Outlet Reflections: History of Proctor, Longbeach, Balfour and Queens Bay”, published 1988, and 2013 with updates.

Captain MacLeod tends to look quite glum in photos, but you can sense how much he loved the Moyie, and took pride in the ship’s remarkable record of reliability and safety through many decades.

The “Kootenay Outlet Reflections” local history book written in the late 1980s notes that three of Norman’s brothers and two of Annie’s brothers left Scotland to join them in Canada. Norman’s brother John MacLeod worked on the SS Nasookin when she was the B.C government ferry crossing Kootenay Lake between Fraser’s Landing near Balfour to Gray Creek on the east shore. After Nasookin was replaced as the lake ferry by MV Anscomb in 1946 John was Senior Captain of the Anscomb until retiring in 1956. Norman’s other brothers Murdo and Bill worked many years for the Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company (Cominco) in Trail. In this period Cominco with its giant smelting complex in Trail was majority owned by the CPR.

Annie’s brother Malcom MacLeod worked on the Moyie and some of the other boats before returning to Scotland. Her brother John MacLeod worked on the boats for a while and then was employed by Cominco in Trail until his retirement.

For many years member of the MacLeod clan in Trail were very active bagpipers in the Trail Pipe Band, keeping up the family’s Scottish heritage.

Born in 1929, Norman and Annie’s son Donald MacLeod moved to Trail, where he was proud to have worked for Cominco for 45 years. He died in Trail hospital on May 4, 2015. His sister Christine Peggy MacLeod was born in Nelson in 1940. For more than 25 years Christine was Procter’s post mistress, with the post office and boxes situated on the front deck attached to the MacLeod family home. She continued living in the family home in Procter until her health necessitated a move to Mountain Lakes Seniors Community in Nelson, where she died on September 8, 2020.

Information on Captain MacLeod in his 1966 death certificate.

Nelson Daily News June 9, 1966 report on death of Capt. Norman MacLeod.

Today the SS Moyie is a National Historic Site safely secured on the beach of Kaslo Bay. It benefits from ongoing programs of restoration and preservation.

On Canada Day, July 1, 2024, this family was among the visitors to the Moyie wheelhouse, where Captain Norm MacLeod presided from the early 1930s until the Moyie concluded service in April 1957.

The stylish interior of SS Moyie, July 1, 2024

View out from the Moyie captain’s wheel. 2024.

The Tragic Drowning of 10-year-old Robert Irvine Hume in Kootenay Lake in 1906

December 13, 2023

by Sam McBride

I remember my mother insisting when I was a young boy in Nelson that I must take the Red Cross swimming lessons. She said Kootenay Lake, while wonderful for swimming and boating, was hazardous for anyone who was not a proficient swimmer.

For one thing, unlike many of the lakes in Alberta, Kootenay Lake started to get deep very close to shore. Also, the lake was notorious for sudden storms and squalls. She said there had been many terrible stories over the years of local children drowning.

She didn’t mention the Robert Hume drowning specifically (it was before her time), but in retrospect it was among the highest-profile drownings in Nelson history, as the parents J. Fred and Lydia Hume were well-known and highly respected. From the Nelson Daily News reports, the whole city was heartbroken.

It happened at about 10 am on Wednesday, August 1, 1906 in the water near the dock of the Hume’s summer residence across the lake from downtown Nelson, known affectionately as Killarney-on-the-Lake. While playing near the shore with two chums Robert’s life jacket apparently got tangled in the wooden dock. When the playmates noticed he had disappeared they yelled for help. The first adult to arrive was CPR conductor Andrew Halkett, who was at his next-door residence. He dove in the water looking for Robert, but had difficulty finding him. Fred Hume rushed down from the house and dove in as well. They found Robert lying on the lake bottom and brought him to shore. While Fred worked on resuscitation, Andrew went to get medical assistance. Dr. Hall came to help, but after much effort realized Robert was beyond saving. Fred took the body up to the house where Robert was privately mourned by family members.

The Daily News report said Robert was “an exceptionally bright little chap, known the city over… a joy to his parents, a manly little fellow beloved by all his playmates.” He was described as a great favorite among guests at the Hume Hotel, and his passing “was the sole topic of sympathetic utterances, not only around the hotel, but in every home in the city.”

The next day there was a funeral service for Robert at the family’s house on Victoria Street conducted by Rev. R. Newton-Powell, pastor at the Methodist Church. This was followed by a solemn procession up to the cemetery, where he was laid to rest in the Hume plot in the Oddfellows section where 11 years earlier the Hume’s three-year-daughter Lulu Kathleen Hume was buried after dying from diphtheria. In November 1912, another sister, 27-year-old Eva Hume McBride (first wife of my grandfather R.L. McBride, who had been a pallbearer at Robert’s funeral), died from premature childbirth complications. Eva is buried next to R.L. and Winnifred McBride in the nearby Mason section of the cemetery.