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Stylish passengers took to river on steamboats

On a recent trip aboard B.C.
Dale and Archie Miller

On a recent trip aboard B.C. Ferries, we got to thinking about how different the clothing chosen by today’s passengers for their voyage is compared with that worn by the passengers on the early steamboats that sailed between Vancouver Island and the mainland and on up the Fraser River.

In those early years of British Columbia, passengers wore a wide variety of suits, jackets, vests, ties, boots and hats, with different levels of formality, definitely changing with the seasons, some ready for work, others simply part of society. This was the general look for the men.

Women wore dresses and skirts, always long, blouses and other tops, jackets and wraps, with striking hats and bonnets and high boots. Again, there were different levels of formality, and dress changed according to the time of year. We could look at more detail but in general, this is the basic look that is captured in images of those times.

There was also a much plainer and rougher level of dress related to many of the jobs in the colony and early province. A wonderful description of passengers on a sternwheel steamboat has come down to us from 1861 in the writings of Lady Jane Franklin who travelled in the Colony of B.C. in an effort to build interest in sending another search party to the Arctic to seek her missing husband, Sir John Franklin, and his men and ships.

She wrote about her time travelling up the Fraser, “We had a beautiful view of the mountains as we crossed the Georgian Gulf and entered the Fraser River between low banks covered with tawny reeds, which looked like tracts of corn land ready for the harvest.

“Our fellow passengers were pretty numerous, chiefly miners and of many races. French, German and Spanish were spoken, to say nothing of unmitigated ‘Yankee.’ Most of them had their pack of baggage, consisting of a roll of blankets to the cord of which was slung a frying pan, kettle and oilcan. Some possessed the luxury of a covering of waterproof cloth to the package.

“Every man had his revolver and many a large knife also, hanging from a leather belt. I should say that this mining costume in “highest” style consists of a red shirt (flannel), blue trousers, boots to the knees, and a broad brimmed felt hat, black, grey, or brown, with beard and mustaches ad libitum.

“There was also a party of theatrical ladies and gentlemen, one of the former, very pretty.”

And so Lady Franklin passed at least some of her time noting her fellow travellers on board a steamboat as she sailed from Victoria to the mainland and up the Fraser River. A part of these travels were on a vessel operated by Captain William Irving and her diary of this time is fun to read. Today we appreciate her observations about her fellow passengers.