Steamboats on the Saskatchewan by James Peel

Another in the series of books of Western Canadian historical nonfiction that I began in 2023 (with Maria Campbell's memoir Half-Breed) and includes:

•  The One and a Half Men: The story of Jim Brady and Malcolm Norris, Metis Patriots of the 20th Century
• The NorthWest is Our Mother:The Story of Louis Riel's People, the Métis Nation 
• The York Factory Express: Fort Vancouver to Hudson Bay, 1826-1849.

Why this book? I grew up in Saskatoon hearing stories about how steamboats had once navigated the South Saskatchewan river. Local lore claimed either that the city's weir had been constructed to raise water levels to improve navigation or that its installation had ended steamboat transport past the city. As it turns out, neither story is true -- the last steamboat to reach Saskatoon was the City of Medicine Hat which wrecked there in 1908. The Saskatoon weir was constructed in 1939.

In fact, as I learned by reading this book, the vast majority of steamboat trips happened between 1874 and the early 1890s, with travel happening between Grand Rapids (where the Saskatchewan River meets Lake Winnipeg) and Fort Edmonton (on the North Saskatchewan River). Most steamboats were built and operated by the Hudson's Bay Company (or a wholy-owned subsidiary), and supported shipping for the fur trade. 

In other words, this book is a continuation of the story that I last encountered in The York Factory Express. 

Having read that book helped me scan this one.  I was already familiar with the La Colle rapids just west of the forks of the Saskatchewan, which formed a major barrier to steamboats just as they had to the York Boats of the HBC Brigades.  I already knew about the impassible rapids at Grand Rapids (where the Saskatchewan plunged into Lake Winnipeg), so the difficulties they encountered hauling boats and freight from the lake to the head of the river was not a surprise. But it was interesting to learn more about the somewhat mystifying way that this (major) river vanished into multiple streams and bogs and lakes in the marshes near Cumberland House. Those ever-changing channels affected steamboat navigation much more than they did the transport of the smaller, more maneuverable York Boats, as did the river's  seasonally fluctuating water levels, sandbars, ice-jams, and rocks.

Is Steamboats on the Saskatchewan interesting for a general reader? Well, you'll have to decide for yourself, but you should know that the book was published in 1972 and has a laser-focus on the steamboats themselves: their captains, their tonnage, their repeated wrecks, the details of their voyages in the various shipping seasons, the ownership structure of the shipping companies, the endless lists of cargos. This is a specialist book on a specialist historical subject, in the same way that The Northwest is Our Mother focuses on the story of the Metis to the exclusion of the larger historical context.

That means that most of the most interesting questions that the book raised for me were not addressed. How did the advent of steamboats change the fur trade? Did steamboats supplement or immediately replace the HBC Brigades who had transported goods along the Saskatchewan since the 1770s? What was the effect on the cargo hauled on Red River Carts along the Carleton Trail? What did the advent of steamboats do to the lives of the Metis whose livelihoods depended on the Hudson's Bay Company? How about the First Nations who traded with the HBC? Was this the beginning (or the acceleration) of settlement of the North West Territory, or was the presence of steamboats incidental to that process? Who used steamboats for transport from Winnipeg to Fort Edmonton (at the princely sum of $60/person for a cabin-class fare)? HBC administrators and their families? Settlers? 

And then there are the stories that Peel mentions just long enough to intrigue. I wanted to know more about Henry Budd, the "Indian clergyman" who recorded in his diary the first visit of a steamboat to Cumberland House in 1874. Who was Budd? Were First Nations clergy common or was he (relatively) unique? Where was he educated? What was his story? And then there was the side-bar about the Saskatchewan steamship captains who travelled to Egypt and Sudan in a failed attempt to rescue General Gordon from the siege of Khartoum in 1884.  Peel mentions that 200 voyageurs were also recruited to paddle small boats up the Nile as part of this effort.  Really?  Who were they? Did they ever reach Egypt? What happened to them? Sadly Peel doesn't think it's worth following up, leaving me to wonder what it was like for a Metis from the prairies to help prosecute the ambitions of Empire in colonial Egypt (and what they thought of the pyramids!)

Speaking of colonialism, that brings me to another core element of the book: its casual colonial racism. The most innocuous way that this shows up is in Peel's assumption that the life stories of the (white) American steamboat captains are more interesting than the stories of the people whose lives the steamboats affected. An even more striking way it appears, of course, is in Peel's description of the "Riel Rebellion" at Batoche in 1885. Despite Jim Norris's then-galvanizing 1962 speech at a Fish Creek memorial pointing out the absurdity of calling the battle a victory for Middleton (the advance of Middleton's 925 troops towards Batoche was halted for three weeks by 60 Metis fighters, at a cost of 50 Canadian casualties to Dumont's 5), Peel continues the colonialist narrative that the Battle of Fish Creek was either insignificant or a Middleton victory. Peel's account of the steamboat SS Nortcott's attempt to participate in the Battle of Batoche follows a similar trajectory: it portrays the Nortchott's contribution as significant, even though the steamboat was disabled early on by the adroit use by the Metis of a ferry cable and by their rifle fire.  

But the single most telling example of colonialst racism in the book is the way Peel tells the story of the steamboat Lily's exploratory trip down the South Saskatchewan to Medicine Hat in 1883. Her crew underestimates the scarcity of wood near the river and the ship runs out of fuel on the high prairie. They don't turn back (a practical solution, as turning back which would take them downstream towards the parkland ecosystem with its many aspen). Instead they find the winter houses of some Metis hunters on the river bank nearby and ????use the houses as firewood???  The author then jokes (!!!) about how surprised the victims of this vandalism will be to find their 'shanties' missing when they return -- presumably near winter's beginning, when the Metis expect to find shelter and will instead have few alternatives. 

All I can say is Holy ****.  Not just at the actions of that steamboat crew -- I'm just as flabberghasted at the 1972 author who thought the story was amusing instead of an outrage.  It gives me a new appreciation for Murray Dobbin's serious political biography of Metis activists Norris and Brody, published in 1981. What a difference in attitude.  

Which brings me back to the question "Should I read this book?".  I'd have to say that for most, the answer will be no. For most, Steamboats will fall into the category of  "a boring book full of historical details about a place and time I don't care about, written in an obsolete style and with an offensive attitude".

Does that mean that I'm sorry that I read it? 

No. Not at all.  For me, reading Steamboats on the Saskatchewan helps correct and enlarge the story of the history of the province that I was told growing up, especially given that I've read it in conjunction with a number of related books that make this book both more understandable and more interesting. It helped reinforce for me that the history of Saskatchewan is not just the story of the settlers like my grandparents, great-grandparents, and great-great grandparents who "broke the land" and founded its cities.