Quote:
Originally Posted by ronkaren
in the early 1900's medicine hat had 130 foot paddle wheelers' trying to make a living cruising the south saskatchewan river. i believe there was room on board for close to a hundred people. , but low river levels ended the large boat undertakings.
also in 1921 the city of medicine hat hired a professional rainmaker, that didn't work out that great either.
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River boats were a bit before my time but I do know that they operated on the Peace River up until the Canol Road was built in the mid 1940s.
The Canol Road was later renamed The MacKenzie Highway.
River boats continued to provide transportation along the river for a few more years until connector roads could be built to connect communities like Fort Vermilion to the new highway.
I don't know when exactly the last one retired, I don't remember them but they might have lasted into the mid 1950s. Records were not kept for all the boats since some of them were locally owned and built.
There are extensive records for some of the more expensive boats like the D A Thomas and the Peace River but smaller local boats like The Russian Navy and the Weenusk are only mentioned briefly in records from that era.