Bonnington (sternwheeler) - Arrow Lakes Service

Arrow Lakes Service

Bonnington ran on the Arrow Lakes route from Arrowhead to Robson West during the summer seasons from 1911 to 1931. The summer season was the busiest time for tourism and other traffic, and ran from approximately 15 May to 30 September of each year. While Bonnington was big, she was not particularly fast, and the C.P.R.'s older all-wooden sternwheeler Rossland could easily outrun her. The size of Bonnington was not always an operating advantage, as her huge superstructure made her difficult to handle in a crosswind. Also, while her steel hull gave her ice resistance that wooden-hulled vessels lacked, the winter was also a time of low water in the Narrows that separated the upper and lower Arrow Lakes. While Bonnington had a shallow draft for a vessel her size, only 3.5 ft (1 m) deep, that was still too much to negotiate narrows at low water, so Bonnington could not traverse the length of the lakes during the winter months of low water.

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