Minto (sternwheeler)

Minto (on right), with Trail on left and Rossland in center, at Arrowhead between 1898 and 1900
History
Name:	Minto
Owner:	Canadian Pacific Railway
Route:	Arrow Lakes
Builder:	Thomas J. Bulger
Laid down:	July 28, 1898 (assembly of pre-manufactured components began)
Launched:	November 19, 1898, at Nakusp, BC
Maiden voyage:	November 19, 1898
In service:	1898
Out of service:	1954
Identification:	CAN 107453
Fate:	deliberately burned August 1968 after attempts at conversion to museum failed
Notes:	near twin of Moyie
General characteristics
Type:	inland shallow-draft boat passenger/freighter
Tonnage:	829 gross; 522 net
Length:	161.7 ft (49 m)
Beam:	30.1 ft (9 m)
Depth:	5.1 ft (2 m) depth of hold
Ice class:	steel-sided hull allowed some ice navigation
Installed power:	coal-fired boiler generating steam at pressure of 175 lbs p.s.i., steam engines manufactured by Bertram Engineering Company of Toronto, Ontario, twin single-cylinder, horizontally mounted, 16" bore by 72" stroke, 17 horsepower nominal
Propulsion:	sternwheel
Capacity:	As of 1920: 13 staterooms, 400 passengers
Crew:	As of 1920, total of 33: Master, mate, pilot, nine deckhands, two engineers, three firemen, one coal passer, purser, freight clerk, chief steward, eleven assistant stewards and cooks

Minto was a sternwheel steamboat that ran on the Arrow Lakes in British Columbia from 1898 to 1954. In those years of service, Minto had steamed over 3.2 million kilometers serving the small communities on Arrow Lakes. Minto and her sister Moyie (which ran on Kootenay Lake) were the last sternwheelers to run in regularly scheduled passenger service in the Pacific Northwest. The "Minto" class of sailing dinghies is named after this vessel.

Minto was one of three steamboats built of steel and wood that were intended for service on the Stikine River during the Klondike gold rush. The other vessels were Moyie and Tyrrell. The Canadian Pacific Railway which commissioned the vessels had hoped to develop an "All-Canada" route to the Yukon gold fields that bypassed the other routes, generally through Skagway, Dyea, or from St. Michael on the Bering Sea all the way up the long Yukon River. All the parts for these steamers were manufactured in Toronto, Ontario and shipped to the west coast of Canada for assembly.

When the Stikine Route to the Klondike proved to be a failure in the first three months of its opening in 1898, the C.P.R. was left with a number of steamers, including Minto (then in a disassembled state) that it needed to find routes for. C.P.R. decided to assemble Tyrrell in Vancouver, Moyie on Kootenay Lake, and Minto at the Bulger shipyard on upper Arrow Lake at Nakusp. Minto was needed on the Arrow Lakes because the C.P.R.'s big new steamer Nakusp had been destroyed by fire in 1897. It is possible that some preliminary assembly work was done on Moyie and Minto in Vancouver before they were shipped inland still in pieces. The construction program for the Stikine River service, and the eventually assembly of Minto and her sisters, was supervised by the veteran steamboat captain James W. Troup, the superintendent of C.P.R.'s Lake and River service. C.P.R. decided to assemble Moyie first, and her composite steel and wood hull was riveted together first at Nelson, BC. The assembly crew then moved over to Nakusp on upper Arrow Lake and on and then on July 26, 1898, began work on the Minto. Reportedly there were literally 1,000 pieces for each sternwheeler.