Ivanhoe and Master: Two Towboats of British Columbia by William A. Hagelund
The first steamship on the Pacific coast was the Beaver, built in England and assembled at the Hudson's Bay Company outpost at Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River, in what is now the State of Washington . Built in 1836, the Beaver sailed north to survey and help settle Fort Victoria and Fort Langley in British Columbia. During the Fraser River Gold Rush she was chartered to the government for use as a patrol boat based at Fort Langley , and later still she operated as a coastal towboat from 1870 to 1888.
The Ivanhoe and Master are two vessels that spent a lifetime in this coastal trade , and they are the sole survivors of a fleet that once numbered in the thousands. As such, they represent both a technology and an industry that have vanished from the Pacific Northwest. Designed by the pioneering shipbuilder Arthur Moscrop for George I. Wilson, Ivanhoe was built at the Wallace Shipyards , Ltd., on False Creek , Vancouver-the last boat built at the Wallace yards-in 1907. When she was built she was an exemplary model of wooden-hulled towboat design, and the second largest towboat ever built in British Columbia. With a length of l 12ft overall, a draft of 14ft and grossing 182 tons, Ivanhoe had one of the longest working careers of any ship in British Columbia when she was retired from service in 1971.
Beaver as a logging camp supply ship in British Columbia, around 1886-87. The men are loggers; the cordwood on the float is probably for the Beaver's firebox.
Although the earliest settlers of British Columbia were prospectors and trappers , it soon became clear that one of the region's most exportable commodities was-and remainslumber. Initially , settlers cleared the forests closest to their forts and towns and they were able to transport the timbers a short distance downriver in rafts, or hauling it with teams of oxen . As settlements grew, the timberlands became more remote and the only practical way to transport lumber to the mills was to raft them in booms. These booms were composed of logs ganged in sections-as many as thirty-five in some cases-60ft by 60ft and held together by "sticks," "riders" and "swifters." The booms were attached to tugs by bridles and towed over distances as great as 500 miles at speeds of 1 Y2-2 knots . The earliest of these towboats had two things in common: they were steam powered, and they were constructed of the local soft woods, Douglas fir and red and yellow cedars, that they were built to tow . A typical log boom entering Vancouver Harbor in 1926 through the First Narrows under tow by the Coutli.
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An unusually fortuitous photo of the SS Master and the (then) SS Ivanhoe, taken in the late 1920s.
Ivanhoe was purchased by the Powell River Company (later MacMillan , Blowdel) in 1911 and operated for them by the Kingcome Navigation Company. Her entire career was spent in the logging industry towing log booms from camps between Prince Rupert and Vancouver. Shortly after her acquisition by Powell River, her coal-fired plant was replaced by an oil-burning unit which made her one of the first (if not the first) oil-fired steam engine vessels. In 1937 this engine was replaced by a 600hp Union Z-type diesel engine which made her the most powerful tug on the coast. Her engine is the largest Union diesel still in operation, although smaller models do exist in British Columbia and elsewhere. Although she was maintained in excellent condition by her owners, the strain of her long and arduous career in the logging industry took its toll. She was purchased by a private owner in 1971 who lived aboard her for two years. Proving too costly to mai ntain, Ivanhoe was sold again, this time to an enterprising Vancouver tug enthusiast named Donald Napier. Napier' s vision was to restore her to her pre-1938 configuration when her diesel engine had been installed . As it was impossible to obtain the necessary funds to effect this as an individual , he formed the non-profit Ivanhoe Heritage Foundation, who now maintain her as a charter vessel available to groups for short day cruises orovernight passages, as well as for education exhibits. SEA HISTORY , SUMMER 1986