Steamboats of the Arrow Lakes
The Arrow Lakes Route was also accessible from the south, at Northport, Washington, also on the Columbia River, where there was also a rail connection.
The first steamboat on the route was the Forty-Nine, built to service a brief gold rush on the Big Bend of the Columbia River, attempting the run from Marcus, Washington Territory, just above Kettle Falls, to La Porte, one of the main boomtowns of the rush, which was sited at the foot of the infamous and also impassable Dalles des Morts or Death Rapids, which were at the head of river navigation but also just below the richest of the Big Bend's goldfields, on the Goldstream River which meets the Columbia just upstream.
Another major goldfield, Downie Creek, joined the Columbia just below the rapids and was the site of the boomtown, another port of call on the run.
[3][4][5] After that, the small steam launch Alpha ran supplies up to Revelstoke (then called Farwell) where the CPR was building a crossing over the Columbia River for its transcontinental line.
Mara, Frank S. Barnard and Captain John Irving, who formed the Columbia River and Kootenay Steam Navigation Company on January 21, 1890, with a capital of $100,000.
[5] C&KSN also brought up from Oregon one of the best steamboat captains on the Columbia River, James W. Troup, to manage its operations on Arrow and Kootenay lakes.
Troup had to deal with a number of challenges, including irregular schedules, and ice and low water blocking operations.
Boats no longer needed to steam up the shallow waters of the Columbia between the north end of Upper Arrow Lake and Revelstoke, and Arrowhead now became the effective northern head of navigation.
This took out both of the C&KSN's passenger steamers, leaving only Illecillewaet and Kootenai moving the freight business, which was mostly related to rail construction.
[5] The following steamboats and related vessels operated on these lakes: The Columbia was bought by the Waldie lumber Co. and refitted from steam to a Vivian Diesel in 1948
