Gwendoline was built in 1893 at Wasa, BC on the Kootenay River for the Upper Columbia Navigation & Tramway Co. of which Capt.

[2] Gwendoline was wrecked in Jennings Canyon[5] in May 1897 in a collision with Ruth, another sternwheeler of the Upper Columbia Navigation & Tramway Co.

Halfway through the canyon, a log caught in Ruth's sternwheel, which threw the vessel out of control and caused to swing broadside blocking the channel.

[3][4] There was some talk that Captain Sanborn should have flagged the channel to warn Gwendoline and his statement that a log had jammed in his sternwheel was questioned.

By the end the year, business declined sharply on the route as traffic shifted over to newly completed railways, causing Gwendoline to be laid up at Jennings from October 1898 to the spring of 1899 with two other unneeded sternwheelers, North Star and J.D.

Miller, one of the most experienced steamboat captains in the Northwest, had the idea of moving Gwendoline by rail around Kootenai Falls.

While loaded on two flat cars, the vessel tipped over and fell down 70 feet down a canyon, landing bottom side up, and was a total loss.