old boatshop in Steveston

[Chris-on-the-Boat]

It can't be said enough, Ron, but thank you so much. I am getting married soon, and hoping to have children, even at my late age of 40. And our common history, of boat building, fishing, and support industries, is disappearing from modern memory. I have an older friend, a troller from way back, who just sold his boat. When he was a kid in school ,his graduating class spent thee years in wood shop building a troller (in Ilwaco). He and his friends would set up "guerilla hatcheries", setting up fish boxes in small creeks and starting a run there... These things are all disappearing from modern memory. I hope that I live long enough to teach my future children about trolling, and gillnetting, and about a not so long ago time when men built boats out of the timber on their property, and fed their families with the result. Thank you again for providing this irreplaceable link to our common history.

[ron david]

here is an earlier picture of the Hells Gate. this picture was in Pr.Rupert spring of 75 . we(my brother Mike and I) had just come up from Nanaimo and were heading over to the Charlottes on hallibut
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ron

[ron david]

this is a continuation of a boat on the 1st page which is the 1st pic here
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ron

[ron david]

con't;
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ron

[ron david]

here is a picture of the old man;
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ron

[ron david]

here is a pic of Charlie Lindsay a shipwright who worked for the old man. he was believed to have worked in Coal Harbour previously.
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this was on top of the dike between the old house and the frt of the boatshop.
ron

[ron david]

a bit more on the Bristol Bay boats where they are getting ready for the trip north to Alaska
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and under way
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ron

[ron david]

here is my mom and dad in what appears to be one of the 14 footers that he built
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ron

[ron david]

took my chesapeake bay down for a swim tonight in Tsehum Harbour. I see that some a/h has anchored a boat shed out there to add some ambiance to the surroundings.
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ron

[ron david]

and on the otherside of Resthaven Is is the Governemt dock. that building in the background which is a Canada Parks building which replaced where my old shop was a dozen years ago. prior to that is was one of the last of the small boatshops around which was operated by a shipwright by the name of Peter London. One of my brother's old boats, the Hells Gate is tied up in the boats to the left
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ron

[Cappy]

Thanks so much for posting this . I now live in Sidney area but grew up in Steveston on Lulu Island. I hung out down at Scotch pond and such all the time, and played on the dunes back in the day. Brings back a lot of memories.
a band called Circus in Flames wrote a tune called "Down on the Fraser" I'm sure I was the kid on that Keystone mini bike he's talking about. here it is https://myspace.com/circusinflames/m...raser-22227155
Thanks Again

[ron david]

this is about my uncle John who worked with my dad at the boatshop off and on over the years. the article come off the front page of 1973 edition of the Vancouver Sun newspaper.
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these brothers all lived an interesting lives. they all except for one all sailed the merchant ships during the 1st war and on the whalers. there were a few stories about John. he was supposedly a fairly powerful man. the old man was telling when him and John were longlining (by hand) for sharks in the Gulf of Georgia in the early days that John had pulled up the old B.C Telephone line cable. there was also an article written about 1952-3 in the Toronto Star Weekly about him. John had quite a few line cabins in his guiding territory, which ran from the Seymour to the Coquitlam watershed and about 60 mikes back. He had planted sasquatch tracks back in the bush and the story grew. he was just trying to keep the a/holes out from ransacking his cabins.
his main cabin was right at he mouth of the Indian River at the head of the Indian Arm, just about a 1/2 mile from where the old Wigwan Inn use to be (right across the Arm from Granite Falls). the Wigwag Inn was a den of inequity as there was all sorts of things going on there from drinking, gambling and loose women. that was where the old Vancouver police chief use to visit frequently. John got to observe all of the comings and goings
ron

[MiddleAgesMan]

Thanks for the wonderful history lesson. I had missed your thread until about an hour ago and it has had me transfixed as I went from the very beginning to the end. I hope you have many more pictures and time enough to share but even if not please accept our gratitude.

One simple question: Is Steveston pronounced with two syllables or three? (Steve's-ton or Stev-e-ston?)

[ron david]

Thanks for the wonderful history lesson. I had missed your thread until about an hour ago and it has had me transfixed as I went from the very beginning to the end. I hope you have many more pictures and time enough to share but even if not please accept our gratitude.

One simple question: Is Steveston pronounced with two syllables or three? (Steve's-ton or Stev-e-ston?)

thank you. two syllables; it was named after the Steves, who are still around also
ron

[MiddleAgesMan]

Thanks. I had guessed wrongly.

[darroch]

the Wigwag Inn was a den of inequity as there was all sorts of things going on there from drinking, gambling and loose women. that was where the old Vancouver police chief use to visit frequently. John got to observe all of the comings and goings
ron

Ha! It still is a den of 'inequity' - it's an RVYC outstation.

[ron david]

a link to a current picture of the Wigwam Inn and it also show a picture of the Buntzen power plant where my uncle Walter Jones(mother's side) was electrocuted back in the late 40's
http://www.vancouverhistory.ca/archives_IndianArm.htm
and another link to more pics of it now and early days
https://www.google.ca/search?q=wigwa...w=1858&bih=974
ron

[ron david]

some pictures of when the old man was working up in Athabasca in the 20's
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believe that these pictures may be of the area
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ron

[ron david]

this more from Athabaska




did look like a cold desolate place to work in
ron

[Larks]

this more from Athabaska




did look like a cold desolate place to work in
ron

That would have been quite an interesting launch to watch.

[ron david]

That would have been quite an interesting launch to watch.

quit a few of the older boats were built on the beach. I think that most of the old Todd Bros fleet (J.H.Todd & Sons) out of Steveston were built on the beach in Masset. They fished "Fairweather" 40,50's and into the early 60s. I was around as a kid and remember someone saying when they were out there one day that it was blowing a 100mph and gusting.
ron

[ron david]

been in discussion with the archives at Athabasca over the last few years and have sent them the pictures of there and Marilyn there has been identifying where the pictures were taken and is still working on it. I heard the stories from the old man over 60 years ago. here is a picture that I was sent of the "Peace River".

This is one of the messages that I got back
Thanks, Ron, for the photos. The bridge photo might be the bridge at Dunvegin on the Peace River. The photo of the Midland and Pacific Grain Co. elevator could be Peace River as a Midland elevator was built there in 1928. In 1954 it became a UGG. ( Vanishing Sentinels by Jim Pearson, 2012). The paddlewheel boat looks like the Peace River. See the scanned photo. I haven't time to identify all the photos but it is interesting.
ron

[deltabrent]

The smaller open inboards resemble a number of derelicts around Yellow Point Lodge near Nanaimo. I worked there for a number of years and I found 5 or 6 in various places on the property!

[ron david]

from the archives in Athabasca.
I have the two photos that you sent in 2008. Your e-mail has caused me to re-examine our steamboat photos looking at smokestack locations, wheelhouses etc. in an attempt to get a positive identification. I have enjoyed this exercise before as, of course, some photos are incorrectly named from the source. The photo of the Northland Echo that you sent was taken at a different location than Athabasca. It is on a lake it appears. I am including a page from "Athabasca Landing: an illustrated history" which speaks of the final days of the town as a transportation hub in 1914 and the relocation of some of the steamboats that were built in Athabasca. I am always interested in photos of boats that were used in this area.
Thank-you for sharing the information with the archives.





ron

[ron david]

The smaller open inboards resemble a number of derelicts around Yellow Point Lodge near Nanaimo. I worked there for a number of years and I found 5 or 6 in various places on the property!

thanks for the info. if they were the old man's boats they would have had the following stamp on either side just front of the rear seat


thanks
ron

[davebrown]

Great thread! I recall reading about a commercial fishing feller in New England who went overboard, acquired water in the lungs, went home, and then died a number of hours later, technically drowning.

[ron david]

just finished reading a neat little book with the title"The Susie A" by Alan Haig-Brown. The "Susie A" was a 56' wooden seiner built at the Atagi Boatworks in Steveston in 1926. Atagi became my father's in 1942 and I was born there in 45..It starts out with a boy of 9 years old watching the start of the building of the "Susie A" and how it intertwines with his life over the next 60 years. talks about the fishing industry and how it served in the second war as a boat on the lookout for subs.
ron
http://www.amazon.com/The-Suzie-A-Al.../dp/088865068X

[ron david]

earlier days at the boatshop when it was Atagi

everything here eventually got filled in from the sand that they dredged out of the Fraser. filled to the height of the walkway

how it looks currently

at close to the end


confiscation of some of the Japanese fishing fleet WWll
ron

[ron david]

here are some pictures of the last boat that my brother Mike owned and used on halibut. it was the Northern Breeze built by Park Shipyards in Coal Harbour 1941(I believe). it was built for Jentoft Eilertson of Pr. Rupert. it had also a Pr.Rupert co-op boat in the 50's




this was the 2nd boat that burned on my brother. it went down in Bull Harbour circa 1988. he was underinsured on this one and lost about $250,000. in this burn.
think that the first one may have been a government fire as it was about the same time as the first rollback on the "A" licenses on salmon. that was in 1969
ron

[pwilling]

what a treasure! I'll have to go up there again and see if I can pick out the places -- wish I had one of those little gillnetters now. The post is great.

[ron david]

here are some pictures of where the Scotish-Canadian Cannery was located, out past where the boatshop was. both it and Atagai were built around 1905. it was gone by WWll




next is a couple of suits at Garry Point circa 1906 where the cannery was; looking at the fishing going on

ron

[ron david]

get to pick up my new baby on Friday night in Sebastopol,Ca. Chesapeake Bay Retriever female puppy


ron

[ron david]

well picked her up last Fri night. she is the one with the red collar
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1 from when we were still there
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my old guy wasn't really pleased about this arrival, actually he turned his back to me and growled for 4 hours and then this moment came
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and one from tonight
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ron

[ron david]

there was a fellow by the name of George Reifel who came to my dad during WW II and wanted him to build him a pleasure boat. you couldn't build pleasure boas during the war so Mr. Reifel told my dad to make it pleasure on the inside and like a fish boat on the outside. my sister told me of this. so this will lead me to see if I can find a picture of it. here is a link to an article on George C. Reifel.
http://www.bclocalnews.com/news/191251391.html
ron

[ron david]

heading out for it's last trip today.but taking the ferry. I am going to deliver it tomorrow to Brittania Shipyards in Steveston which is now a museum. get to deliver it on my 70th birthday and the boat is that vintage

ron