PIONEER STEAMSHIP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20259, 20 May 1929, Page 9

PIONEER STEAMSHIP.

FIRST IN THE PACIFIC, Some details of the remarkable history of the steamship Beaver were given irt London recently by Mr. F. A. Pauline, Agent-General for British Columbia. He 6tated that according to information in the archives of the library at Victoria, British Columbia, the Beaver was actually the first steamship that entered the Pacific Ocean.

She was 101 ft. long, 20ft. beam and the depth of her Void was lift. She was built on the Thames of oak and teak and fitted with two steam engines of 75 h.'p. each, made by Bolton and Watt. She was regarded as a wonder ship at that time and her launching in 1835 was witnessed by King William IV. and a crowd of 16,000 people. Following a trial trip to test her engines and her paddles she was rigged as a brig to enable her to cross the Atlantic, round Cape Horn, and up the Pacific to Vancouver under sail. She could not make the journey by steam, for slie had not enough loom to carry coal for the voyage. -*- - Before leaving the Thames, therefore, the padcUes were, presumably removed and stowed away for refitting at Vancouver, where she arrived after an adventurous voyage of 163 days. She reached her destination in 1836, and her arrival was celebrated by the Hudson Bay Company, for whose service she was built, arranging an excursion trip, in which many leading local men of the day took p ai t—a notable 6vent in the nautical' historv of the Pacific. After weathering the storms of the British Columbian coast for 38 years she was sold by the company to a grocer at Victoria, Mr. Henry Saunders, who converted .her into a tug. In 1888 she ran upon some rocks and was wrecked. Mr, Pauline points out, by way of tributeto the soundness of her construction, that when her engines were taken out they were still in good running order, after 53 years' service, while her timbers were turned into souvenirs and sold to thousands! of admirers of her history. As evidence of the great skill of the natives of that province Mr. Pauline mentioned that the Beaver in 1860 visited a number of the coast villages of British Columbia and a month later, on revisiting o/ie village, found a miniature replica of herself putting off from the shore to meet her, with smoke from burning leaves issuing from a funnel and natives turning the paddle-wheels, the craft having been constructed entirely by tiio local Indians. ■