Arriving In Kaslo By Ship

Interview with Roy Green

Leaving the Prairies

So I dropped the granddad a line and told him I'd be on my way. He wired back and said he'd be delighted to have me come out and so I bought a ticket from Moose Jaw to Kaslo. The trip from Moose Jaw to the foot of the Lake was very pleasant. The railroad had just been built through the Crow's Nest Pass. The rolling stock was in pretty fair shape. Had a dining car on board and we were pretty well fed. I had been living out of a lunch box from Eyebrow until I hit Moose Jaw and the train and so we had a very pleasant trip through the Crow. Very exciting time when we came across the prairies and came within sight of the foothills. First time I had ever seen the hills. The foothills just excited me tremendously as a taste of what was to come. I don't think I took my eyes off the scenery from the time we came into the foothills and into the Crow's Nest pass until I hit Kuskanook. The transition from the train to the boat was a little exciting. First time I had seen a steamboat the size of the Nasookin. She was a three-decker and quite a magnificent ship and comparatively new at that time. There were a lot of passengers on the train and a lot of passengers to transfer to the boat. There was a big hustle and bustle on the dockside, at Kuskanook, and rattle of the freight carts and the shouting and the puffing of the train and the excitement of the passengers leaving the boat to board the train going east. My fellow passengers leaving the train, boarding the ship to go west. The excitement of hunting your baggage up and looking after the extra parcels you were carrying. More especially that you were entering a new phase of life where the scenery and the people and the travel was totally different to what you'd been accustomed too.

The Nasookin

Any rate, we boarded the Nasookin about four-thirty in the afternoon, bound for Nelson. And we had time to go aboard and after the train trip you found it necessary to wash up a little bit and I had some spare clothes in my suitcase so that I could wash-up, change my clothes and get rid of the dirty, sooty clothes I'd been wearing on the train. The dinner gong went and we were assigned our places at the tables. The Nasookin was a palatial ship and the dining room was well laid out. There were sitting accommodations for about 80 diners at a time. The sparkling linen, the vast array of silver, the pose of the stewards in their white jackets and serviettes over their arms. Clean-cut fellows. Looking very professional. The whole deal tended to make me a little bit nervous cause I had mentioned before, we were born on the wrong side of the tracks, we'd been living in poverty the greatest part of my life and this was a brand new experience for me so I was a little bit taken aback. One of my great worries was that I might make a little bit of a fool of myself in the presence of company which were evidently well travelled people and knew their way around and I knew they wouldn't have any difficulty with the silverware especially. But I soon put the nervousness aside because the stewards seemed to be very perceptive to a person's feelings as to if they were at all nervous. Stewards perceive this quite readily and so came time to order. I ordered what I thought would be a good starter. I found myself taken care of very well by the steward. If I showed any hesitation, I found myself with the right tool in my hand at the right time. I was not aware of the fact that the menu was laid out so that you could have as much or as little as you pleased. But when I found the stewards were pressing me to have not one course, not two courses but all the entrees, the whole deal, I proceeded to take advantage of it. I was 21 years old and having spent the greater part of my life semi hungry, this was a great treat. I ate my way half-way from Kuskanook to Nelson for a dollar-and-a-half. To top the whole deal off, when the steward asked me what I'd have for dessert, I looked over the menu and decided deep apple pie would be a new experience. I knew enough about apple pie to know that a slice of cheese would go good with it. So I said deep apple pie please with a slice of cheese. Low-and-behold, when they served the apple pie, along came a whole cake of cheese. A round cake of cheese. I suppose it had twenty pounds in it. With a scoop. Now, he says, help yourself. The most liberal helping of cheese I ever had in my life. I didn't go through the whole thing but I made fair headway with it.

The West Arm

Okay. It was in the fall of the year. Dusk came early in that clime and we had time. We were supposed to dock in Nelson at 9 o'clock in the evening. Dusk set in around about 6 o'clock cause we were in the shelter of the hills. We had plenty of time to communicate. Wander around. Get acquainted with the rest of the passengers. I found them all very, very fine people. Some of them from every walk of life and many of them aristocrats from the old-country, coming into the country to settle or to visit. All delightful people. We entered the West Arm and at that time the West Arm was sparsely settled . Mainly fruit ranchers and some loggers and others just stump ranchers. There was no highway communication so the boats took the passengers up from the shore and took them either into town or delivered them from town to the shore. And it was a most welcome sight on this dark night to see the yellow gleam of very often coal oil lights or candle lights in the cabin windows. I suppose that many of the settlers along the line had an agreement with the boat crews that they would leave their lights burning so they would act as a sort of a beacon so they could plot their course down the river cause the river was rather treacherous. It formed sand bars which were always shifting and the boat drew considerable draft. Not excessive draft that you would get on a deep water boat but 5 or 6 feet and of course this meant that the Masters, the steersman, had to be very, very careful. The course of the channel was laid out by buoys, light buoys, so the captains were very familiar with it and there was not very much danger of running ashore. But, as I say, the settlers did leave a light burning so it would help the crew.

Arriving in Nelson

We arrived in Nelson at 9 o'clock, approximately on time and it seemed that half of Nelson was down at the dock to meet the passenger train coming in. There were some horse drawn vehicles there of the side-seat type and others were cab type. They called out the names of the hotels they were soliciting passengers for and not having any prior advise as to what was good and what was bad. I listened to one old-timer with a horse drawn vehicle. He was calling for the Royal Hotel. Royal sounded pretty good so I grabbed it and found myself in more or less of a flea-bag when we got up that far. But there was no backing out at that time and I was shown to a room on the upper floor with a barred window, higher than my head. So I pulled the washstand over against the window to look out through the bars to see what the prospect was below in case of fire. I found out that there was nothing for three stories down. Anyway, I couldn't have got through the bars so I spent a rather uncomfortable night because of wooden hotels and the old time hotels had a great record for burning down. At any rate, daylight came and I had a half day to spend in Nelson until 4:30 in the afternoon when the boat left for Kaslo.

The Kuskanook

I took the Kuskanook from Nelson to Kaslo. Left at 4:30 and arrived at Kaslo at 9:30 in the evening. I enjoyed that trip. I had another dinner on board. Very lovely and the people coming into town on that trip. I knew that if I was going into town that I'd be getting acquainted with people at any rate. So being an easterner and a little bit curious, and not having become acquainted with the code of the West, that you "greet people, you're friendly with people but you don't ask them their business and you don't ask them where they came from. You simply accept them the way they are." But I was nosy at any rate and I decided I'd make as many friends on the trip that I could. And I did. I was very successful. Meeting four or five very nice people and when they heard where I was going and who my people were and I received an additional welcome.

We made the usual stops along the Lake and arrived at the point, opposite Kaslo, Lighthouse Point, and the town had come into view. I was amazed. I thought I was coming into a town of five or six hundred people you know. I was amazed. There were lights strung. Streets were lit and it seemed to be a high ground and it looked like a metropolis, like New York, that we were coming into.

The Boat whistled and we got stirred around to get our baggage in line and finally we were arrived in the [Kaslo] Bay at the dock. Half of the town was down there. They were calling out for the King George Hotel. The freight man, the express man, he was calling out for baggage. People to go up town. My granddad met me at the dock. Gave me a very, very fine welcome.

Excursions

There were picnics by the different Church organizations. The different lodges. Sometimes it appears, by the crowd of people who were at the dock to embark on the picnics, that everyone was leaving town. They were destined for either up the Lake to Fry Creek, over to Campbell Creek for a short run, to Mirror Lake to Ainsworth, to Riondel, the Blue Bell mine, to Procter, to Pilot Bay. All of these were favourite picnic spots. The CPR were very, very good in supplying transportation while they had the sternwheelers on the Lake. A sternwheeler could be chartered for the day for a matter of a hundred dollars. That was deposit and was irrevocable. If the weather turned bad and they didn't have a good crowd, they still had to pay their hundred dollars but that was very cheap charter because would usually carry up to 300 passengers. It was a great time for the kiddies and the parents alike. They enjoyed getting together and these were the outstanding events as far as the young people were concerned. From the tiny tots to the teenagers. A lot of hi-jinks going on. The parents had a good chance to visit. They enjoyed getting away from town for a little while.

Visiting Nelson

I haven't mentioned Nelson yet and Nelson was a focal point for many celebrations such as regattas, hockey games, football games and etc, etc, etc. Now the young people were to get from one place to another they would possibly charter a boat and possibly take the regular trip. Not too often would they take the regular trip for the simple reason that the boat left Nelson at 4:30, on the regular schedule, and that would curtail the time they had in town and probably break into the entertainment that the were attending. So they'd very often charter a boat for the return trip. I remember many times when we gotten together groups of 20 or 30 to go to Nelson to celebrate probably on Dominion Day, probably Regatta or some other special occasion. This was a very nice get together for a group of people. We enjoyed the trip down and we enjoyed the companionship on board ship and we enjoyed the picnic lunches, if we carried them, otherwise we'd enjoy the meals served on board. We'd usually enjoy our recreation time in Nelson and the return trip was a little different. The return trip was generally late in the evening and it gave the party a chance to break up. Some of them were in the main lounge, some of them were in the lady's lounge, the odd couple would sneak into one of the state rooms and two or three odd couples would sneak up under the hurricane deck, behind the crew's quarters. And a few of them would take shelter under the life boats and so the party was pretty well disbursed on the way home. However, this wasn't a regular occurrence but I have experienced it. Usually there were one or two in the party who would have a musical instrument along, such as a ukulele, mandolin [mumble] and they'd provide a little bit of music for dancing in the lady's lounge. Always very enjoyable and arrive home at a very decent hour, probably 10 or 11 o'clock in the evening. Enjoyable time altogether.

Saving the SS Moyie

About that time, the lake-service had discontinued. Since we built the road to Lardeau that meant there was access to that country by half-ton trucks. Highways and bridges and half-ton trucks began to spell the end of steam boating on the Lake as had done the highway between Kaslo and Nelson on completion of the rock work around Coffee Creek bluff. So that when we got done the building of the road to Lardeau we had continuous access from the outside world, particularly through from Nelson to Gerrard at the upper end of the Lardeau Valley. So retirement seemed to be in the air. There was a sense of change taking place. We knew that the boat-service on the Lake would soon be discontinued. So I tapered off a little bit and eventually the Moyie was retired off the run.

The old sternwheeler that had been put on the run in '98 and she'd served 60 years and began to look a little bit worse for wear. The trade was not there. The barge work was fairly skimpy. It was mooted that she was to be retired. Some of the members around the Lake began to feel since the Moyie was the last operating sternwheeler on the Lake she should be saved. A campaign got underway to save her. This campaign was headed by a gentleman [Noel Bacchus] up the Lake who had used her for a matter of 40 years to service him as transportation between his place and the outside world. The Chamber of Commerce got in on the deal. The CPR were agreeable to sell the old vessel to the people of the area. They wanted to place the title of the vessel in the hands of an organization which would guaranty continuity of ownership. And so they sold her to the City of Kaslo for the nominal sum of one dollar.