A01=Ted Barris
Assiniboine River
Author_Ted Barris
captain
Category=NHK
Category=WGG
Edmonton
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
excursion
fireman
fish
freight
Kittson
lake
Lethbridge
lumber
McArthur
Medicine Hat
native
Northup
paddlewheeler
pilot
Prince Albert
Red River
Red River Rebellion
Riel Rebellion
river
Robinson
Saskatoon
steamboat
steamer
steamship
stevedore
Winnipeg
Product details
- ISBN 9781459732087
- Weight: 708g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 03 Dec 2015
- Publisher: Dundurn Group Ltd
- Publication City/Country: CA
- Product Form: Hardback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
The story of steamboating in the Canadian West comes to life in the voices of those aboard the vessels of the waterways of the Prairies.
Their captains were seafaring skippers who had migrated inland. Their pilots were indigenous people who could read the shoals, sandbars, and currents of Prairie waterways. Their operators were businessmen hoping to reap the benefits of commercial enterprise along the shores and banks of Canada’s inland lakes and rivers. Their passengers were fur traders, adventure-seekers, and immigrants opening up the West. All of them sought their futures and fortunes aboard Prairie steamboats, decades before the railways arrived and took credit for the breakthrough.
Aboriginal people called them “fire canoes,” but in the latter half of the nineteenth century, their operators promoted them as Mississippi-type steamship queens delivering speedy transport, along with the latest in technology and comfort. Then, as the twentieth century dawned, steamboats and their operators adapted. They launched smaller, more tailored steamers and focused on a new economy of business and pleasure in the West. By day their steamboats chased freight, fish, lumber, iron ore, real estate, and gold-mining contracts. At night, they brought out the Edwardian finery, lights, and music to tap the pleasure-cruise market.
Their captains were seafaring skippers who had migrated inland. Their pilots were indigenous people who could read the shoals, sandbars, and currents of Prairie waterways. Their operators were businessmen hoping to reap the benefits of commercial enterprise along the shores and banks of Canada’s inland lakes and rivers. Their passengers were fur traders, adventure-seekers, and immigrants opening up the West. All of them sought their futures and fortunes aboard Prairie steamboats, decades before the railways arrived and took credit for the breakthrough.
Aboriginal people called them “fire canoes,” but in the latter half of the nineteenth century, their operators promoted them as Mississippi-type steamship queens delivering speedy transport, along with the latest in technology and comfort. Then, as the twentieth century dawned, steamboats and their operators adapted. They launched smaller, more tailored steamers and focused on a new economy of business and pleasure in the West. By day their steamboats chased freight, fish, lumber, iron ore, real estate, and gold-mining contracts. At night, they brought out the Edwardian finery, lights, and music to tap the pleasure-cruise market.
Ted Barris is an award-winning author, journalist, and broadcaster. For more than forty years his writing has appeared in the national press, as well as in history, news, and arts magazines, and he has authored seventeen non-fiction books. In 2014, his Globe and Mail national bestseller, The Great Escape received the national Libris Non-Fiction Book of the Year Award. He lives in Uxbridge, Ontario.
