The far upper Columbia River s steamboat era lasted only thirty-four years from 1886 to 1920. It concerned two streams. It ranged from Golden on the Columbia up to Columbia Lake across Canal Flats and down the Kootenay to Jennings, Montana. This was a distance of over three hundred miles. The vessels were almost amphibian.
Records show succession of stovein hulls, wrecks, sinkings, and groundings.
Outstanding figures were Captain Frank Armstrong and William Adolph Baillie-Grohman. The latter was a big game hunter and this is the reason he came to the Rockies, to look for mountain goat and grizzlies. Baillie-Grohman was also interested in the construction of a diversion ditch from the Kootenay to the Columbia. The C.P.R. objected to this construction as they claimed it would flood the main line north to Golden. A compromise was made and the Baillie-Grohman Syndicate would construct a ship's canal with locks.