Assembled at the the Bulger shipyard in Nakusp, BC in 1898,
The Minto had been intended to run the Stikine River in northern British Columbia as part of an all Canadian route to the Klondike gold fields. When that proved unsuccessful, the parts for the Minto, which had been fabricated in Toronto, were shipped from Vancouver to be assembled in Nakusp on Upper Arrow Lake. Work began on the Minto at Nakusp on July 26, 1898 and on November 19, 1898 she slid into the water to become one of a fleet of five sternwheelers serving the communities up and down the lakes. Ultimately, there were fourteen sternwheelers of various size which operated on Arrow Lakes. Only one sternwheeler, the S.S. Moyie, had a longer career as a lake steamer. The Moyie ran Kootenay Lake from 1898 to 1957, three years longer than did the Minto. She has been preserved and is displayed at Kaslo, BC.
The Minto, with a composite wood and steel hull, turned out to be the most durable of the steamers on Arrow Lakes and, because of her steel covered hull, was able to run in ice, which kept the wooden hulled ships at the dock. Improved rail access to the area curtailed shipping and by 1923 only two steamers were running on the lakes, the very large Bonnington and the Minto. The
Great Depression hit the Arrow Lakes hard, with the Bonnington being taken out of service, leaving the Minto and a steam tug, The Columbia, to serve the lakes.
Still in operation in the 1940s when no other lake steamers were operational, the Minto and her sister ship,
The Moyie, became quite famous, with steamboat lovers from all over North America, even the world, coming to Kootenay and Arrow Lakes to ride on them. The Saturday Evening Post published an article about Minto and the National Film Board made a motion picture about her. A
replica of the S.S. Moyie offers summertime excursions at Calgary's Heritage Park.
In 1947, summing up their later careers, Professor Mills wrote of Minto and Moyie:
That pair still survive, graying as they approach the half-century, but still doing their work, Moyie running from Proctor to Kaslo every Saturday, touching all the way landings informally, and bringing to little isolated lake settlements their mail, groceries, and visitors, stopping briefly to chat while the cargo is transferred, and going casually on. At noon everyone finds a place on deck, breaks out a lunch basket, and sets to, since the Moyie no longer has the refinement of a dining room. But Minto still has one and needs one, for her run is longer, the length of Arrow Lakes and a strip of the Columbia down to Robson, a trip lasting about two days. There were other stern-wheelers in the fleet, newer than the twins, but they did not have such powers of survival. Perhaps their names were too much for them -- Kooskanook, for example.
From Wiki
On April 24, 1954, Minto made her last run, with a tearful reception at every stopping place. She was sold to the town of Nakusp for $1, with the intent of converting her into a museum. This never came to pass and she was again sold for $750 to a Nelson junk dealer who stripped out everything of value. A concerned individual, John Nelson, bought the remains for $800 and had her towed to his farm at Galena Bay. There she sat beached until 1968 when, with the construction of the Keenleyside Dam at the foot of the lakes, the lake was due to rise some 40 feet. With no other options left for her, on August 1, 1968 she was towed out into the lake and was burned to the water line, her hull later sunk.
Within the Revelstoke Museum sits an exact replica of the Minto. For many years the replica, built by Mr. Dave Williams and Mr. George Hannah, was resident at the Revelstoke Railway Museum but has (since 2012, at least) been moved to the downtown Revelstoke Museum, housed in the old two storey brick and stone post office. Accompanying the photos of the replica are photos of the Minto, showing that the replica is as close to exact as one might expect. We even have a photo of the Minto's demise, her being burned in the lake before being sunk.
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