Beaver was asteamship originally owned and operated by theHudson's Bay Company. She was the first steamship to operate in thePacific Northwest ofNorth America, and made remote parts of the west coast ofCanada accessible formaritime fur trading. At one point she was chartered by theRoyal Navy for surveying the coastline of British Columbia.[1] She served off the coast from 1836 until 1888, when she was wrecked.
A consortium that became the British Columbia Towing and Transportation Company in 1874 purchased her,[1] and used her as a towboat until 25 July 1888. On that day an inebriated crew ran her aground on rocks inBurrard Inlet atProspect Point inVancouver'sStanley Park. The wreck finally sank in July 1892 when the wake of the passing steamerYosemite struck it, but only after enterprising locals had stripped much of the wreck for souvenirs. TheVancouver Maritime Museum houses a collection ofBeaver remnants including the boiler and two drive shafts for the paddle wheels, one raised in the 1960s and the other returned from a collection in Tacoma, along with the boiler. A plaque commemorates the site of the sinking. Divers surveyed the wreck in the 1960s. However, when the Underwater Archaeological Society of BC did so in the 1990s, they found she had mostly disintegrated due to rot and currents.
Canada
.jpg)
