Oldest Intact Sternwheeler - SS Moyie British Columbia

The SS Moyie and her sister ships literally opened the Kootenay Region to miners, businesses, farms and pioneer families. When she was launched on October 22, 1898, there were no roads, no trains, and of course no air travel into these hidden mountain valleys.

The ships were the only real means of transportation, freight and mail service. And so they came - rich, poor, prospectors, immigrants and settlers - sailing up the pristine waterways on ships that were themselves works of art. The sternwheelers were the bearers of our destiny.

The Moyie was originally planned to serve an "All Canadian Route" by the CPR to the Klondike. When the bill authorizing the essential railway link failed to pass the Canadian Senate in 1898, the CPR began to dispose of its fleet of vessels, and the Moyie was shipped by rail to Nelson for service on Kootenay Lake.

The Moyie began service on December 7, 1898, to connect with the newly completed rail line from southern Alberta through the Crowsnest Pass to the lower end of Kootenay Lake. The Moyie operated on the Nelson-Kootenay Landing Route as the major vessel until the construction of the larger and faster S.S. Kuskanook in 1906. After completion of the Kuskanook in 1906, the Moyie was assigned to secondary routes from Nelson or Procter to Kaslo and other smaller communities along the shores of Kootenay Lake, in particular, Lardeau and Argenta.

The duties of the Moyie were many and varied and, except for refitting, she appears to have been in almost constant service-on average, all but one or two days a month. She was sometimes used as a tug on the Procter-Kootenay Landing Route, but more often she worked barges around the lake on a varied daily schedule that saw the steamer leaving early in the morning and not tying up until late in the evening. With a crew comprised of from 14 to 21 men, she hauled such commodities as powder, oil, apples, lumber, coal and ore concentrates.

The Moyie was also used on excursions during this period and as many as 200 passengers were carried. For example, on July 30, 1924 an excursion was operated between Nelson and Procter with 217 people on the eastbound trip and 183 returning to Nelson late in the day. Nelson to Procter and Nelson to Kaslo were favourite excursion routes. Vessels were operated to Kaslo as a traditional part of the May 24th holiday celebrations.

The extension of the CPR railway along the west shore of Kootenay Lake in December 31, 1930, enabled the railway to retire its mainline steamer and tug and barge service on Kootenay Lake, leaving only limited passenger and barge service to outlying points along the lake. With the retirement or sale of all vessels except the S.S. Moyie she provided once-weekly scheduled passenger service to Kaslo and other lake points and also moved railcar barges (transfer barges) to Lardeau and Riondel as required. The Moyie also continued to provide excursion service on the lake.

Buy at AllPosters.com

By the 1950s the Moyie had become a sternwheeled, passenger carrying tug, a role she was not originally designed to fill but had been doing so effectively for many years. On April 27, 1957, the Moyie was retired from CPR service. At high water the next spring, the vessel was moved to Kaslo and beached. The City of Kaslo had purchased the SS Moyie from the Canadian Pacific Railway for $1.00 as is, where is.

To oversee preservation of the ship, the Kootenay Lake Historical Society (KLHS) was incorporated under the Societies Act on June 12, 1958, with the mandate to preserve and maintain the 1898 CPR passenger sternwheeler, and to promote awareness of Kaslo and area's local history.