Leading BC transportation historian Robert Turner can’t get enough of the SS Moyie.
The sternwheeler, which operated on Kootenay Lake from 1898 to 1957, has been a museum at Kaslo since its long marine career ended.
Turner wrote a book about it in 1991, The SS Moyie: Memories of the Oldest Sternwheeler, and it also figured prominently in one of his earlier books, Sternwheelers and Steam Tugs: An Illustrated History of the Canadian Pacific Railway’s British Columbia Lake and River Service, which was reprinted in 2007.
Now he’s written another book about the ship, published by Harbour Publishing and entitled The Paddlewheeler SS Moyie: The Sweetheart of Kootenay Lake.
What keeps him coming back to the subject? In an interview, he explained that a lot has happened with the venerable ship in the last 35 years, even though it hasn’t gone anywhere.
“I’ve been able to find more information and new photos,” he said. “A lot of the detailed interior restoration came along later and that’s a really neat part of the story. So it seemed like a good time to do something new and bring it up to date. There was quite a bit more to say.
“The Moyie has a way of getting a hold of you and not letting go. There’s something about the boat that’s just intriguing. And so many of us who have been involved in one way or another with the restoration are pretty stuck on that old boat and don’t want to lose our association with her as the years go by.”
Turner’s association with the ship goes back to the 1970s when he was working for BC Parks and later for the Royal BC Museum. He received a tour of the Moyie from curator Roy Green, who “was busy moving pots and pans around the passenger deck that were carefully placed to catch leaks coming through the deck above.”
Ironically for something that spent its working life on the water, trying to keep water out of the vessel has been a constant challenge. A full-fledged restoration didn’t begin until the late 1980s. At that time, New Denver’s Ken Butler was hired as project manager and Turner embraced the role of project historian. He interviewed former crew members, including chief steward Dave Webster, chief engineer George Donaldson, and skipper Sam Podmoroff.
“I felt so privileged to meet those people and try and capture some of their memories and details of how the boat was put together and maintained,” Turner said.
Lucky survivor
That the Moyie and its sister ship on the Arrow Lakes, the Minto, each lasted more than 50 years when other local sternwheelers were taken out of service much sooner was partly due to their construction. While the Minto and Moyie were wood-planked, which required a lot of maintenance, both had steel-framed hulls, giving them a much longer lifespan than wooden-hulled boats.
Both were originally going to be used by the Canadian Pacific Railway on the Stikine River following the Klondike Gold Rush. The CPR ordered steel frames for several boats from Toronto, but only one, the Tyrrell, made it to the Yukon before the company’s plans changed. Two boats were instead sent to the West Kootenay: the Moyie was assembled at Nelson and the Minto at Nakusp.
Among the CPR’s fleet, each boat was only mid-size but their sturdy hulls gave them versatility. As new railways and roads were built in region, the usefulness of the sternwheelers declined until the Minto and the Moyie were the only ones left. Even into the 1950s, though, some lake communities relied on those boats for mail and to ship orchard fruit. The two beloved ships were “retired gracefully,” as Turner puts it, in 1954 and 1957 respectively.
Soon after, their stories diverged. The Moyie was acquired by the City of Kaslo and turned into a museum, but similar plans for the Minto at Nakusp foundered. Years later, the Minto was stripped of parts and what remained was sold to John Nelson of Galena Bay, who dreamed of restoring the ship one day but was unable to. Following his death, the boat was burned on Upper Arrow Lake in 1968.
Remnants of a few other inland sternwheelers survive: part of the Nasookin is a private home on the North Shore and the saloon of the Kuskanook now stands next to the Moyie. At Penticton, the Sicamous is preserved, although its degree of restoration is not the same as the Moyie‘s.
The work that began on the Moyie in the 1980s involved a major structural restoration, including a new steel cradle, as well as the addition of a fire suppression system and redecking of the ship. Due to simple weather exposure, the Moyie had to be redecked again in recent years, under the guidance of Kit Ashenhurst. The Moyie is a project that will never really be finished, as its preservation requires ongoing work.
Although Turner lives in Victoria, he has been back to Kaslo numerous times over the years. Where once it might have been common for visitors to the Moyie to recall riding the boat, fewer people now have such first-hand memories. Instead, Turner will overhear visitors who reminisce about the part they played in the ship’s restoration.
“The mom or the dad will say, ‘This is the wall or the cabin I helped restore when I worked on the Moyie 20 years ago,’ which is really lovely,” Turner said.
“She’s a national historic site, a very special one. So there’s a lot more to talk about and tell than just a simple collection of artifacts. One challenge for any historic site or museum is to keep it interesting and something new visitors can relate to and learn from.
“I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to continue to make it interesting and meaningful to younger generations. I’m pretty confident we’ll have an audience in years to come.”
