Talk:Beaver (steamship)

Columbia River??

I may have been hasty, but I removed the Steamboats of the Columbia River template and related cat from this page, and also took the Beaver off the template. but maybe I'm wrong, and the Beaver did see the Columbia upon its first arrival in teh pacific Northwest; I don't have my history books handy (they're 4000 miles away) to check on it dropping by Fort Vancouver or working the Columbia; maybe, but I don't recall it; I stand ready to be corrected though.Skookum1 (talk) 05:30, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

oh dear, certainly Beaver was a Columbia River steamboat, in fact the very first one on the Columbia. Not very successful, as she burned a huge amount of wood, 40 cords a day while steaming, and there were no woodyards back then. You could steam for one day, then spend two days or however long cutting wood. (No chain saws back then either!). That could make sail power look pretty good. Also, she drew too much water to run successfully on the Columbia River. Perhaps more importantly, John McLoughlin, the HBC factor at Oregon City, hated her, basically he seems to have thought her too new-fangled. Still, she ran up to Oregon City a few times, and also to Fort Vancouver, under sail I believe for her first trip in 1836, and it was there that her paddle wheels were assembled after the trip out from England, and it was therefore in the Columbia then that she actually became a steamboat again. I haven't had time to write on the Beaver as it would take a lot of work to really do justice to her 50 year career. There are multiple sources for her Columbia River career, including:

• Corning, Howard McKinley, Willamette Landings, at 18 (2nd Ed.) Oregon Historical Society, Portland, OR 1977 ISBN 0-87595-042-6
• Mills, Randall V., Sternwheelers up Columbia, at 1-5, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, NE 1947 ISBN 0-8032-5874-7
• Newell, Gordon R., Ships of the Inland Sea, at 5-7, Binford & Mort, Portland, OR (2nd Ed. 1960)
• Timmen, Fritz, Blow for the Landing, at 4, Caxton Printers, Caldwell, ID 1972 ISBN 0-87004-221-1

There's also been a couple of books written on the Beaver over the years, these are in the Multnomah County Library, I have not checked them out yet, being too busy with my insane quest to wikify all the other steamboats of the Pacific Northwest. ;-) Mtsmallwood (talk) 06:26, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Charles Dodd, capt. 1843-1852

I was looking up Labouchere Channel and, on a within-5km-radius find for Labouchere Passage, which is different, I found Dodd Narrows and this mini-bio of Charles Dodd, who was also a chief factor. The Dodd link currently refers to an English historian, Toutell, who uses the name as a pseudonym; I wanted to drop the link here for later reference/article usage.Skookum1 (talk) 12:53, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Flag issue

I replaced the wholly-inappropriate modern Canadian flag with the HBC one, which would have been this vessel's original flag, though perhaps the Union Jack was used after the ship was contracted to the Colony, then to the Royal Navy. Similarly 1871-1888 its flag would still have been the Union Jack, and not the Red Ensign (which shouldn't be used, I think, on ships anyway.....there was no RCN at this time so any RCN colours are irrelevant).Skookum1 (talk) 01:23, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I've replied to your post on WT:SHIPS, but a few points here:

• The HBC flag was a house flag, not a flag indicating the nationality of a vessel. It would have only been flown by ships owned or chartered by the Hudsons' Bay Company, and was used to indicate the company that owned or was chartering the vessel.
• The Red Ensign is the correct flag flown by British and empire-registered merchant vessels prior to 1892. After 1892 it becomes the Canadian Red Ensign for Canadian-registered merchant vessels. The red ensign ceases to be a flag used by the Royal Navy from 1864. It was never a colour of the Royal Canadian Navy. The Union Flag, if flown, was not flown as an official identifier of nationality, this was the purpose accorded to the Red Ensign. Benea (talk) 03:11, 6 May 2009 (UTC)