Pert (sidewheeler)

Pert
History
Name	Pert
Owner	Upper Columbia Navigation & Tramway Co.[1]
Port of registry	Canada
Route	Inland British Columbia on the Columbia River in the Columbia Valley
Builder	Fred Wells
Out of service	Abandoned 1905
Identification	CAN #107826[2]
Fate	Abandoned 1905
General characteristics
Type	inland passenger/freighter
Tonnage	6.5 gross tons; 4 registered tons
Length	50 ft (15 m)
Beam	10 ft (3 m)
Depth	2.6 ft (1 m) depth of hold
Installed power	unpowered bateau 1887–1890; converted to sidewheel and first steam engine installed 1890, details unknown; second engine installed 1900: high-pressure single-cylinder vertically mounted 5-inch bore by 6-inch stroke, 6.44 nominal horsepower, built by Albion Iron Works.
Propulsion	sidewheels

Pert was a sidewheel steamboat that operated in British Columbia on the Columbia River from 1887 to 1905, often transporting large loads of timber. Pert was also known as Alert and City of Windermere at times.

Pert was built at Golden, British Columbia, by Fred Wells, who named the vessel Alert. The vessel seems to have been originally built as a bateau, that is, an unpowered river vessel propelled by oars or by poling along the river. An engine and sidewheels were installed in 1890.^[2]

In 1891, Capt. Frank P. Armstrong started operating Pert as part of his steamboat line, the Upper Columbia Navigation & Tramway Co. (UCN&T) to operate on the headwaters of the Columbia River above Golden, an area which is known as the Columbia Valley. From 1892 to 1898, Armstrong ran Pert on Columbia Lake.^[2]

The river flowing out of Columbia Lake was often too shallow for a steamboat, and so UCN&T built a mule or horse-drawn tramway extending to the northern end of Columbia Lake. Cargoes bound south to the valley of the upper Kootenay River would be loaded on the tramway, and pulled to the wharf on the lake, then loaded on Pert. The steamboat would then paddle south across the lake to the portage at Canal Flats. The cargo would then be unloaded and portaged over to the Kootenay River. When Pert was running on the river, a canal and lock connected Columbia Lake with the Kootenay River. The canal was not much used; only three steamboat transits were ever made.^[1]

In 1898 Armstrong sold Pert to Capt. Alex Blakely, who rebuilt the vessel into a propeller-driven towboat with a new name, City of Windermere. In 1903, Blakely sold it to Capt. E.N. Russell, who changed the vessel's name back to Pert and ran her on Windermere Lake and the upper Columbia River from 1903 to 1905.^[2]

Pert was abandoned in 1905 on Windermere Lake.^[2]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Steamboats of the East Kootenay region.

• Faber, Jim, Steamer's Wake—Voyaging down the old marine highways of Puget Sound, British Columbia, and the Columbia River, Enetai Press, Seattle, WA 1985 ISBN 0-9615811-0-7
• Timmen, Fritz, Blow for the Landing, Caxton Printers, Caldwell, ID 1972 ISBN 0-87004-221-1