S.S. DISTRIBUTOR

Built:  1908 in Victoria by Alex Watson Jr.
Registration #:  122393

Hull length:  136.6 feet (exclusive of sternwheel)
Hull width:  30.4 feet
Hull depth:  5.4 feet

Gross weight:  607.27 tons
Registered weight:  379.23 tons
Engines:  1908 Polson, two horizontal high pressure cylinders 15" wide x 72" long, rated at 15 NHP

DISTRIBUTOR loading on Skeena River  
Image Courtesy of BC Archives - Detail of Call #C-05487

In 1908, the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway decided to build their own sternwheeler to haul construction supplies up the Skeena Valley.  They commissioned Captain Johnson to help them build the DISTRIBUTOR.  She was quite similar in lines to the PORT SIMPSON, minus the elaborate passenger accommodations.

The DISTRIBUTOR was the first of a fleet of five vessels who became the workhorses of the Skeena, hauling thousands of tons of supplies for the railway.  The Hudson's Bay Company chartered the DISTRIBUTOR for several trips up the Stikine River in 1908, but she worked primarily for the contracting firm of Foley, Welch & Stewart on the Skeena.

In 1911, she sailed to Victoria where she was later dismantled and her machinery installed in a new vessel on the Mackenzie River.

DISTRIBUTOR near Kitwanga
Image Courtesy of BC Archives - Detail of Call #I-33287

This digital collection was produced under contract to the
   SchoolNet Digital Collections program, Industry Canada. Revised:  02/15/99