Barnard's Express - The Wreck of The BX

The Wreck of The BX

With the completion of the railway on April 7, 1914 and navigation blocked on the route to Tête Jaune Cache, the company ran the BX and the BC Express only from Soda Creek to Fort George.

With the construction of the Pacific Great Eastern Railway underway, the sternwheelers were needed to help deliver equipment and food supplies to the work camps. However, with the onset of World War I, John Stewart of Foley, Welch and Stewart called a halt to the PGE's construction. In 1915, the BX worked alone, with the BC Express reserved for special trips. Despite having a monopoly on river traffic, the BX finished the season with a $7000 loss.

In 1916 and 1917, sternwheelers were not used on the upper Fraser River at all. Then, in 1918, after an appeal from the Quesnel Board of Trade, the provincial government granted the BC Express Company a $10,000 per year subsidy to continue river navigation from Soda Creek to Fort George. The request was justified because Quesnel and the other communities along the river had been promised a railroad, but the construction on the PGE had slowed to a crawl and would in fact not to be completed to Prince George until 1952. In the meantime, the settlers and farmers needed a way to ship their produce to market and steamer fares were the most reasonable option.

The BX ran until August 30, 1919, when she was punctured by an infamous rock called the "Woodpecker" and sank with a 100 tons of bagged cement intended for construction of the Deep Creek Bridge. In the spring of 1920, the salvage work was completed and at a cost of $40,000 the BX was raised and patched sufficiently to get her back to Fort George. The BC Express pushed her back upstream through the Fort George Canyon and to the shipyard at Fort George. This would be the first time in the history of sternwheelers that one would push another upriver through a canyon.

The BC Express ran until November 1920 and then it joined the BX on the riverbank at Fort George, where their hulls were abandoned.

Thus ended the days of the pioneer transportation company that Francis Barnard had established nearly 60 years earlier.