Paddleducks
Old Yahoo Group => Yahoo Messages => Topic started by: Robert Grauman on June 16, 2005, 10:42:57 PM
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> please continue to share stories and
> information from those two special books you have and especially any
> material you have on Alberta and Saskatchewan paddlers.
I'm glad you enjoyed the yarn. The "Northcote" was 150 feet bow to stern
and 28.5 feet in breadth. Her gross tonnage was 460. With a cargo of 150
tons, she drew 3'6" of water. Her engines were salvaged from another
unknown boat, and were rated at 40 horsepower.
A footnote in "Steamboats on the Saskatchewan" provides further details on
the "Northcote" at the Battle of Batoche.
"The persons in the pilot house during the battle were Captain Segers,
Captain Sheets and Purser Talbot. Segers was in charge and Sheets acted as
pilot. Talbot handled a rifle and received slight flesh wounds in shoulder
and ankle. Segers received a bullet in his coat sleeve. Dozens of bullets
came through the thin walls and the windows of the house. According to
Segers' obituary notice many years later, no less than ninety bullets were
found embedded in a bale of hay bulwarking the pilot house. The rebels made
the house a special target, for they were well aware that it was the
vessel's most vulnerable point."
"Archie Ballantine's version of the battle, based on hearsay and written
many years later, was that Captain Sheets steered the boat lying on the
floor looking through a hole cut for the purpose and protected on either
side by box stoves. Hitting the ferry cable, the Northcote was swung
sideways and might have gone in towards the shore. The pilot house rang the
engineer to reverse to get the boat back into midstream, but the man had
fled to the hold. Dan Herce, the fireman, came to the rescue and backed the
vessel into midstream again."
Captain Segers was a legend in this region. The previous year (1884), he
had volunteered to leave the Saskatchewan and serve with the British Army to
sail sternwheelers on the Nile on the expedition to rescue General "Chinese"
Gordon at Khartoum. Later, Captain Segers sailed sternwheelers on the
Athabasca River and in the Klondike.
On the subject of the Athabasca River, I have another book in my library
titled
"Ribbon of Water and Steamboats North - a History of Fort McMurray Alberta",
by D. F. Comfort (1974). While the book covers the history of the town, the
town's history is linked to the steamboats that plied the Athabasca River.
Several of the boats that sailed this river are shown in photographs,
including the sternwheelers, and misadventures on the river are described.
Sorry for the long posting.
Robert Grauman in Sunny Alberta
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One of which, IBIS, is still in existence. Built by Elders, later Fairfields
at Govan, she was photographed laid up at Cairo by a friend a few years ago,
and is currently undergoing conversion to a Nile cruise steamer.
Alistair Deayton
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Interesting! Thank you for that. On the Nile, Captain Segers served aboard
two sternwheelers built by Yarrow and Company on the Clyde. They were the
"Water Lily" and the "Lotus". I doubt that any of the boats Captain Segers
sailed have survived. In 1903, he invested his savings in a sternwheeler,
the "Quickstep". After one of his trips down the Yukon from the goldfields
of the Klondike, he was anchored in the harbour at Nome, Alaska, when a
tidal wave deposited the "Quickstep" on top of a dockside warehouse. Not
only had he lost his life savings, but he had a lawsuit on his hands for
$1,500, for property damage to the warehouse.
Robert Grauman in Sunny Alberta