We use a lot of stories about our maritime history. Recently, while talking of life on the Fraser River and the cargoes that were carried, we referred to a favourite item from the past – an example of four ships on the Fraser River in the summer of 1900.
The four vessels were sternwheel steamboats and all were well known on the river, the Gulf of Georgia, the Gulf Islands and Vancouver Island. They were the Transfer, Ramona, RP Rithet and Beaver, the second of that name.
From a local newspaper article we learn of their shipping on an August day in 1900. The Transfer was making return trips from Steveston at the mouth of the Fraser River. We learn that “on her up trip yesterday she brought 10,000 cases of salmon from the Scottish-Canadian cannery.”
The canned salmon that was her primary cargo that day was probably being gathered at the city docks or rail depot for shipment elsewhere in the world. This vessel had also carried “quite a number of passengers” on a round trip.
The Ramona was also moving cargo from the docks of Steveston to upriver docks, distribution points and industry in the New Westminster area. Over a couple of trips she carried “35 bales of straw and 600 salmon … 160 cases of oats for the Brackman and Kerr Milling Company.” The Brackman and Kerr business dealt with a great deal of grain products and breakfast cereals.
The vessel RP Rithet made a couple of quick connections and, from the paper’s description, we learn a bit more related to timing and speed as well as function. “The steamer Rithet arrived in from Victoria last evening and left again about 11 p.m. in order to be at Victoria in time to carry an excursion this morning, to Salt Springs.” (Note that this would be Salt Spring Island.)
The RP Rithet had also been busy with her late evening arrival under the lights of the riverfront: “her cargo included 500 cases of salmon, and she took out a carload of flour and some box lumber.” The flour likely came from Brackman and Kerr, while one of the local lumber mills would have provided the wood for export.
For the steamer Beaver the newspaper report is really quite wonderful – an agricultural shopping list, and quite a regular occurrence from the Fraser Valley. “The steamer Beaver left for Chilliwack and way ports at 8 o’clock this morning with a number of passengers and general supplies. On her trip yesterday she brought 15 hogs, 117 salmon, 20 sacks of potatoes, 13 boxes of butter, 59 boxes of apples, 20 boxes of plums, three boxes of pears, and smaller lots of cream, etc.”
And so we have four vessels on the Fraser, all using the docks of New Westminster as a part of their commercial travel and the city’s economy on a day in 1900.
