The Upper Columbia Navigation and Tramway Company
About 5 miles (8 km) north of Columbia Lake, the river widened again into another lake. Originally this was called Mud Lake, which may have been an indication of its depth and general condition, but later this was changed to Adela Lake. The 5-mile (8 km) stretch between Adela Lake and Columbia Lake was shallow and difficult to navigate even for the very shallow draft steamers that Armstrong was running on the river. Armstrong's solution to the problem was to incorporate the Upper Columbia Navigation and Tramway Company ("UCN&TC"). The company's charter required it to construct two tramways to improve transport. Armstrong served as manager and T.B.H. Cochrane as president.
The Upper Columbia Company built two horse or mule-drawn tramways, one at the start of the route running from the CPR depot at Golden Station to the point 2 miles (3 km) south where the Kicking Horse River ran into the Columbia. It was here that the company had located its steamboat dock.
The second tramway was located further upriver. It ran 5 miles (8 km) in length, from Adela Lake, BC. south to Columbia Lake. The tramways were like railways except that the cars were horsedrawn, and the carts were much smaller than rail cars. The company had steamers on Columbia Lake and the Kootenay River, but did not use the Grohman Canal, portaging traffic over Canal Flats rather than using the canal, which in fact was only used twice by steamboats during its existence.
With the tramways in place, the 300-mile (500 km) transportation chain from the rail depot at Golden to Jennings Montana ran as follows. Freight would be taken on the tramway to the steamboat dock at Golden, and loaded on a steamer. The steamer ran upriver to the south end of Windermere Lake. The freight would then be portaged around Mud (or Adlin) Lake, to Columbia Lake. Once at Columbia Lake, the cargo would be loaded again on a steamboat, this time the Pert and run to the south end of Columbia Lake, where it was unloaded again, portaged across Canal Flats and loaded again on another steamer on the Kootenay river, and run down to Jennings, passing through Jennings Canyon.
Read more about this topic: Steamboats Of The Upper Columbia And Kootenay Rivers
Famous quotes containing the words upper, columbia and/or company:
“The first to strike will gain the upper hand.”
—Chinese proverb.
“Although there is no universal agreement as to a definition of life, its biological manifestations are generally considered to be organization, metabolism, growth, irritability, adaptation, and reproduction.”
—The Columbia Encyclopedia, Fifth Edition, the first sentence of the article on “life” (based on wording in the First Edition, 1935)
“The delicious faces of children, the beauty of school-girls, “the sweet seriousness of sixteen,” the lofty air of well-born, well-bred boys, the passionate histories in the looks and manners of youth and early manhood, and the varied power in all that well-known company that escort us through life,—we know how these forms thrill, paralyze, provoke, inspire, and enlarge us.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)