Sternwheelers and Ferries But water transportation helped to settle the Okanagan Valley. The Mary Victoria Greenhow was the first steamboat on the lake and in 1891, and then the Canadian Pacific Railway launched the SS Aberdeen, soon followed by the SS Okanagan and later, the SS Sicamous. The sternwheelers brought provisions to the people of the Valley and took fruit and produce from the Okanagan Valley to the world. Passengers or freight leaving Summerland for points north travelled to Okanagan Landing, boarded a connector train on the Shuswap & Okanagan Railway line to Sicamous and then a passenger or freight train on the CPR Mainline to their destination. The CPR sternwheelers were mainly freight boats, but they also provided first-class service to passengers. They featured staterooms, smoking rooms, ladies’ saloons and dining rooms. The Sicamous made her last run in 1936, retired due to the fact that she was a very expensive ship to operate and, as more roads were built, and cars and trucks became even more widely available, the need for the steamboats came to an end. Locally, J.M. Robinson ran a launch, the Maude Moore, which became the unofficial ferry between Naramata and Summerland. Business was brisk when the Naramata Regatta or the Crescent Beach Race Track was operating! Robinson formed the Okanagan Lake Boat Company and ran the Maude Moore and the Mallard, later selling out to Peter Roe. He switched to gasoline boats which helped handle the boom in lake travel caused by the construction of the Kettle Valley Railway. The Naramata was one in a line of tugs and car barges along with the Castlegar and Kelowna, which did much of the dirty work on Okanagan Lake. When the MV (motor vessel) Okanagan, launched in 1947, made its final run in 1972 it brought to an end about eighty years of CPR lake service. “And without this dedicated service, the Valley may never have blossomed” (Sismey, OHS, 1972). Next: Trails, boats, and trains: getting around BC’s Interior |
Although fog (and the use of a fog horn) was not a big problem as early vessels plied Okanagan Lake, the many moods of the lake and Ogopogo, the lake “monster”, could pose challenges for the early traveller! 