BEAVER trading on the North Coast.
1836

Watercolor 14" x 21"


On her first year in service BEAVER steamed from Puget Sound to Alaska, and quickly demonstrated her least desirable characteristic, - she consumed fourty cords of wood a day. George Simpson, the HBC governor, commented that it “takes about the same time to cut the wood as to burn it, she is at least as much at anchor as she is underway...”. Nevertheless, it is likely she remained fully rigged only in the first season as early photographs show her with a much reduced rig.

BEAVER’s coastal carreer began in earnest in 1837, when she probed the deep mainland inlets to their ends, in order to contact the natives as close to the interior as possible. This would be the first contact for most of them with a steamship, and it made a powerful impression. Trade was carried out at anchor, and for reasons of safety, usually with only one canoe alongside at a time.