Steamboats of the upper Columbia and Kootenay Rivers

The circumstances of the rivers in the area, and the construction of transcontinental railways across the trench from east to west made steamboat navigation possible.

The Big Bend, in its natural state before the construction of the Revelstoke and Mica dams, included a series of rapids which made it impassable to steam navigation proceeding upriver from the Arrow Lakes.

At Golden, the transcontinental line of the Canadian Pacific Railway ("CPR"), which parallels the Columbia south from the bridge at Donald, turns east to follow the Kicking Horse River,[4] surmounting the Continental Divide at Kicking Horse Pass, then running past the resort at Banff then east to Calgary.

A detachment of the North-West Mounted Police, under Major (later General) Samuel Benfield Steele (1848–1919), was sent to Golden with orders to proceed to the Kootenay to quell the so-called uprising.

This proved to be a mistake, as once the expedition's horse fodder, ammunition, officers' uniforms, and other supplies were loaded on board, Duchess capsized and sank.

Armstrong hired the veteran shipbuilder Alexander Watson, of Victoria, British Columbia, to build the new steamer, which although small, was well-designed and looked like a steamboat instead of a floating old barn.

Someone arranged to have handbills printed up, which on one side bore a woodcut print showing an idealized version of the new Duchess, and on the other side bore a statement showing the company's marketing strategy, which was to appeal to tourists, miners, hunters, and intending settlers, holding out the Duchess as the best means of accessing the Columbia Valley.

The handbill then praised the climate of the Columbia Valley as "WITHOUT EXCEPTION THE FINEST ON THE CONTINENT OF AMERICA" which even so was available at $1.00 per acre, payable five years.

Finally, the handbill advertised the important role and schedule that the new steamer Duchess would play in the development of the Columbia Valley: The STEAMER DUCHESS leaves GOLDEN every THURSDAY morning on the arrival of the Express from the East, and returns to Golden on the succeeding Tuesday evening to connect with the express to the East.

Armstrong obtained a contract from the Canadian Post Office Department on May 1, 1888, to carry mail on the 200-mile (320 km) route from Golden to Cranbrook.

Once at the lake, the steamer connected with a stage line, which ran the mail across Canal Flats and down the valley of the Kootenay River to Grohman, Fort Steele, and Cranbrook.

An ordinary letter in those days cost 3 cents to send, so the Upper Columbia Company's "stamps" were considerably more than regular postage.

However, Baillie-Grohman was able to obtain ownership of large areas of land in the Kootenay region, provided he engaged in certain forms of economic development, including construction of a shipping canal and a lock.

In 1893, Armstrong built Gwendoline at Hansen's Landing on the Kootenay River, and took the vessel through the canal north to the shipyard at Golden to complete her fitting out.

The nearest railhead was that of the Great Northern Railway at Jennings, Montana, well over 100 miles (160 km) away from the major mining strikes at Kimberley and Moyie Lake.

With this in mind, Walter Jones and Captain Harry S. DePuy organized the Upper Kootenay Navigation Company ("UKNC") and in the winter of 1891 to 1892, built at Jennings the small sternwheeler Annerly.

Returning to Jennings, Jones and DePuy were able to make enough money to hire veteran James D. Miller (1830–1907), one of the most experienced steamboat men in the Pacific Northwest, to hand Annerly for the rest of the 1893 season.

[19] Armstrong also wished to take advantage of the demand for shipping, so moving south from the Columbia to the Kootenay, he built the small sternwheeler Gwendoline at Hansen's Landing, about 12 miles (19 km) north of the present town of Wasa.

[20] Ruth made the runs downriver to Jennings and the smaller Gwendoline ran upriver with the traffic to Canal Flats and the portage tramway.

[19] The combination of Armstrong, Miller and Wardner, and their construction of Ruth created serious competition for Jones and DePuy of UKNC with their only steamer the barely-adequate Annerly.

[19] Another competitor was Captain Tom Powers, of Tobacco Plain, Montana who traded 15 cayuse horses for the machinery to build a small steamer near Fort Steele, which was called Fool Hen.

In the summer of 1896, after just six weeks of operation, Rustler was caught in an eddy in the canyon swirled around and smashed into the rocks and damaged beyond repair.

[19] DePuy and Jones were unable to stay in business after the loss of Rustler and were forced to sell their facilities at Jennings, as well as Annerly to Armstrong, Miller and Wardner.

With their principal competitors gone, Armstrong, Miller and Wardner incorporated their firm on April 5, 1897, in the state of Washington, as the International Transportation Company ("ITC") with nominal headquarters in Spokane.

In the meantime, in January 1898, both Armstrong and Wardner sold out their shares in the International Trading Company, and went north to Alaska to participate in the Klondike Gold Rush, with Armstrong deciding to try his chances at making money as a steamboat captain on the Stikine River then being promoted as the "All-Canadian" route to the Yukon River gold fields.

Farrell south through Jennings Canyon in "hurricane"[26] strength headwind, which blew her off course into a rock, knocking a hole in the stern.

Farrell and North Star were tied up for almost three years at Jennings until finding employment supporting construction of a rail line to Fernie, BC.

[19] The boat was moved too close to the edge, flipped off the rail cars and landed in a canyon, which the Libby Press described: She turned over in the fall and lit on her smokestack and is there now, not worth a bad fifty-cent piece, with her bottom up and flat as a pancake.

Forster a wealthy politician and occasional steamboat captain, brought Selkirk by rail from Shuswap Lake to Golden, where he launched her but used her as a yacht and not, at least initially, as commercial vessel.

[18] With the construction of railroads, and economic dislocation caused by Canada's participation in the Great War, steamboat activity tapered off starting about 1915.