Steamboats of the Upper Fraser River

They were used for a variety of purposes: working on railroad construction, delivering mail, promoting real estate in infant townsites and bringing settlers in to a new frontier.

[1] For ten years the area was without steamer service until the Charlotte was built by Alexander Watson for the North British Columbia Navigation Company in 1896.

The N.B.C.N.C was organized by Senator James Reid of Quesnel, Captain John Irving of Victoria and Stephen Tingley of Ashcroft.

Tingley, at this time had been the owner of the BC Express Company for eight years, having been the most famous of the "bull whips" of the Cariboo Road.

Thousands of construction workers would soon be working in-between Tête Jaune Cache and Fort George and millions of acres of land would be opened for settlement.

Premier Richard McBride traveled on the BX in her sumptuous bridal suite, which featured, among other luxuries, a double brass bed with a silk eiderdown.

On Sunday and Wednesday mornings, she would leave Soda Creek at the break of dawn, usually 3am, and would reach Quesnel around noon.

After unloading the mail and supplies for that town she would continue upriver until dark, tying up at a woodpile where her crew would have an opportunity to load more fuel aboard.

Her return trips downriver were far swifter, she would leave Fort George at 7am on Tuesdays and Saturdays, arriving in Soda Creek by 4;30pm of the same day.

The BC Express worked the route from Fort George to Tête Jaune Cache until 1913 and then joined her sister ship, the BX, on the Soda Creek to Fort George route, where they both worked on the construction of the Pacific Great Eastern Railway.

[8] When the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway reached Tête Jaune Cache in 1912, they were able to use their own sternwheelers to transport workers and supplies up and down the river.

When their work was completed their machinery was recycled and the hulls were left at the shore of the Fraser River near Prince George.

[9] The Quesnel was the last sternwheeler on the upper Fraser, Captain Foster piloted her for the last time in April 1921 and then she was wrecked on the rocks of the Fort George Canyon.