Peace River Museum, Archives and Mackenzie CentrePeace River, Alberta
Transporting Northern Dreams: Steamboats on the Peace River, 1903-1930 3) The Hudson's Bay Company on the Peace River: Steamboats and Economic Supremacy.
In 1907 Mary Lawrence describes the departure of her family aboard the S.S. Peace River from their home at Fort Vermilion:
"The last morning, opening brightly in July, Fred [Lawrence] took us across river and drove us the seven miles by buckboard to the Hudson's Bay Company's Post, to the steamer [S.S. Peace River]. During the previous days we had been getting our things together. We were used to travel and ready to leave. The steamer was whistling. We pulled away from each small familiar sight with a wrench of something uprooted. One moment we were calling good-by to Fred and then we were passing the first point, rounding out of sight. Smoke shadow and wake wove and blended, braided and unravelled as the wind and course shifted. Already the children had forgotten! Already they were inspecting a strange wonderful new world! Their minds gasped with the thought of it!"
Mary B. Lawrence, quoted from: Wilderness Outpost: The Fort Vermilion Memoir of Mary B. Lawrence, 1898-1907., edited by Marilee Cranna Toews. Edmonton: The Alberta Records Publication Board, Historical Society of Alberta, 2008, pp. 209-210.
In this colorful description Lawrence clearly links the use of a steamboat on the Peace River with the "strange wonderful new world" of the early 20th century.
In the summer of 1909 Katherine Hughes travelled on the S.S. Peace River. In her journal for her journey she describes typical activities on the steamboat:
" Each two hours the steamboat bell rings four times for the deckhands to go and pile wood into furnace, and then afresh the cinders come out with a rush and the smell of wood fire ascends to our deck--Likewise the heat of it.
The meals are served as for a family. Purser at one end, Captain at other, the other serving the food.
We had:
Bread made from Peace River wheat at Vermilion Mills.
Butter made from Peace River cream.
Potatoes.
Alll waiting to rise from meal together. A young Metis serves the meals and acts as Steward. Good while linen, etc."
In the Promised Land of Alberta's North: The Northern Journal of Katherine Hughes (Summer 1909)., edited by Ken Kaiser and Merrily Aubrey. Edmonton: Alberta Records Publication Board, Historical Society of Alberta, 2006, pp. 35-6.
In the summer of 1910 a reporter for the Calgary Herald, Leroy Victor Kelly, boarded the S.S. Peace River at Peace River Crossing for a trip to Fort Vermilion. After waiting for the boat to return from taking on wood as fuel Kelly notes:
" At 2 o'clock the boat was back. A purser assigned us to our cabins, and there were white sheets on the berths. Everything was as trim and neat as a steamer on the Great Lakes, and the table manners were observed with great care, the passengers being allotted seats and tables, the captain taking the head and the purser the foot of the first table. There was a real service provided, cooking of a sort, and the course service was handled by a boy, who was better in many ways than the real waiters in some of the restaurants of the west.
As the boat pulled out, the citizens, and entire population of Peace River Crossing, gathered on the bank and gave us god-speed and good wishes. We responded with three cheers and a tiger. Three half-breeds with loaded rifles knelt on the bank and fired the royal salute, with riffle muzzles pointed skyward and the butts on the ground. Again we cheered and again the salute crackled out, then the steamer swung wide and took the big turn, and the current and the stern wheel paddles soon took us from the sight of the beautiful Peace River Crossing."
L.V. Kelly. North With Peace River Jim., edited by Hugh A. Dempsey. Historical Paper No. 2, Glenbow-Alberta Insitutute, Calgary, 1972, p.27.