DOWN THE SASKATCHEWAN 



By F. F. WOOD 



N these days of trains, 

 and boats, and auto- 

 mobiles, the average 

 person has no chance 

 to see or travel on 

 the old - fashioned 

 scow or barge. It is 

 only in the develop- 

 ment of a new coun- 

 try, or, more cor- 

 rectly, in the settle- 

 ment of a new coun- 

 try, that such means 

 of travel are usually 

 The present rush of set- 

 into the great Saskatchewan 

 of Northwestern Canada, trav- 

 yet by neither boat nor 

 made this mode of travel 

 The greatest disad- 

 use of scows is the 

 only go one way ; 

 down stream, but 

 take his boat 



can 



employed 



tiers 



valley 



ersed as 



train, has 



very popular. 



vantage in the 



fact that they will 



that is, of course, 



where the settler 



apart and use the lumber in his house 



or barn the disadvantage is reduced to 



a minimum. 



Edmonton is the centre of trade so 

 far, and every year scows and rafts, 

 numbering well into the hundreds, 

 leave for -various points down stream. 

 No pilot's license is necessary to be al- 

 low to navigate the Saskatchewan. The 

 intending sailor goes to one of the com- 

 bined sawmills and lumber yards, 

 builds his boat according to his fancy 

 or his pocket-book, piles in his goods 

 and pushes out into the current, trust- 

 ing for the most part to luck and a kind 

 Providence. 



The boats are all sizes, ranging from 

 14 or 16 feet long by 6 in width, to 50 

 feet long and 16 or 18 feet wide. A ma- 

 jority of the scows have their bottoms 

 and sides (which range from two to 

 four feet in height) made of two layers 



of inch boards. The framework is al- 

 ways of heavier material, either two by 

 four or two by six. The outer layer of 

 boards is always placed so as to cover 

 the joints or cracks of the inner, and 

 the cracks of both layers are filled with 

 spun oakum and soaked with hot tal- 

 low or tar. Those who can afTord it 

 build their scows of plank, which ren- 

 ders them stiffer and stronger and less 

 liable to spring a leak. The cracks in 

 the plank scows are treated the same as 

 those in the double-boarded ones. In 

 some of the boats the front end is made 

 sloping, in some both ends, and again 

 in the smaller boats one end is just like 

 the other, straight up and down, and 

 the result looks more like an over- 

 grown dry-goods box than a boat. At 

 each end in all of the boats there are 

 long, heavy sweeps working between 

 two upright posts or poles. In an ordi- 

 nary sized scow only one sweep an end 

 is used, that is, two in all ; but in the 

 larger ones two are not uncommon. A 

 man to a sweep is the usual order, al- 

 though one or two extra men are often 

 very useful. The big lumber rafts for 

 the colonies away down river, any- 

 where from 40 to 175 feet long, and al- 

 ways loaded heavily with merchandise, 

 require more men and more sweeps, 

 but they hardly come under the head- 

 ing, scows. 



* * * Sj; >|s 



It was the Fourth of July, Saturday 

 afternoon, and a clear, bright day. Our 

 two scows had at last been loaded and, 

 tied one behind the other, lay swinging 

 idly in the current. One was 12 by 18, 

 the other 12 by 36. They were built of 

 plank, with sides three feet high and 

 sloping prows. The smaller scow was 

 tied securely to the rear of the larger 

 one, practically making one long, large 

 boat, in either end of which was a long, 



120 



