Frank P. Armstrong - Return To The Columbia River

Return To The Columbia River

North Star was sold back to Captain Armstrong when he returned from his Klondike adventure, and on June 4, 1902, he took her north to the Columbia River on his famous dynamite-aided transit of the decrepit Baillie-Grohman canal. With North Star gone, steamboating on the upper Kootenay ended for good. While Armstrong had been engaged in the Kootenay and the Klondike mining booms, a few competitors had appeared on the upper Columbia. In 1899, Harold E. Forster (d.1940) a wealthy mountain climber, businessman, politician and occasional steamboat captain, brought Selkirk by rail from Shuswap Lake to Golden, where he launched her but used her as a yacht and not, at least initially, as commercial vessel. Also, Captain Alexander Blakely bought the little sidewheeler Pert and operated her on the river.

In 1902 Armstrong dismantled Duchess. Armstrong built a new steamer, Ptarmigan, using the engines from Duchess which were by then were over 60 years old.

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    At twelve, the disintegration of afternoon
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    The river sweats
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