Steamboats of the Skeena River
The telegraph company then decided to build their own sternwheeler, the Mumford, and she left Victoria under Captain Coffin in July 1866.
The Omineca diggings could be easily reached from Hazelton, where a trail ran for 115 miles (185 km), passing Fort Babine and Takla Lake.
Captain William Moore was under contract with the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) to perform this service, and Robert Cunningham traded as an independent.
He decided that a sternwheeler would be a fine addition to his enterprises, and he bought the Monte Cristo and hired Captain Bonser away from the HBC to pilot it.
In her first season, she went to Hazelton thirteen times, making the trip upstream in forty hours and downstream in ten.
Realizing that the Strathcona and the Caledonia could not compete, the HBC built a third sternwheeler, the Mount Royal and hired Captain Johnson as her pilot.
Captain Bonser started out in the Hazelton first, and while he was wooding-up 105 miles (169 km) upstream, he saw the Mount Royal with Johnson at the helm coming up from behind.
Bonser wagged the Hazelton's stern at the Mount Royal, tooted the whistle and continued triumphantly upstream.
[2] The Federal Department of Marine investigated and decided that both captains were at fault, Bonser for ramming the Mount Royal, and Johnson for leaving the helm.
[1]: 68 These new arrangements between the HBC and Robert Cunningham left Captain Bonser without a vessel until 1906 when he took command of the Pheasant, a small sternwheeler that was the butt of many jokes and nicknamed the "Chicken" because it had to scratch so hard to get upstream.
Bonser's next boat was the Northwest, which was owned by the Northern British Columbia Transportation Company, who also had a hotel and store at Telkwa.
A strong wind pushed her into a large rock formation named Ringbolt Island, wedging her crosswise against the current.
Johnson assessed the situation and decided that the Mount Royal could be saved and with ten crewmen, he returned aboard.
The survivor was the Mount Royal's chief engineer, Ben Maddigan, who was trapped in the bilge and filthy, but unhurt.
[3]: 215 In response to this minor crisis, the HBC refitted the Caledonia, and she ran an emergency trip up the Skeena with the much desired supplies.
The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway's western terminus was at Prince Rupert, and rail construction began from there in 1908.
The railway construction firm of Foley, Welch and Stewart built the Distributor and the Skeena and purchased the Omineca in 1908.
The construction of the railway from Prince Rupert to Hazelton was one of the most difficult sections of track that would ever be laid in North America.
Captain John Bonser, now back from the upper Fraser, replaced Bucey on the Inlander and piloted her for the 1911 and 1912 seasons.
The GTP boats, Operator and Conveyor, were dismantled; their machinery would be used in new sternwheelers that were built at Tête Jaune Cache for east end construction.
For eleven more years the devotion of her skipper-owner kept her plying the river past Surrey, Coquitlam, Maple Ridge, Langley and Mission.
