Before the railway was completed along the shore in 1901, barges were used to move freight\u00a0cars down the Lake. However, those\u00a0barges were over 200 feet (61 metres) long. This barge is much smaller. Bill Meekel tells me that:<\/p>\n
barges of this size (probably 60 ft x 20 ft [18m X 6m]) were commonly used by the CPR Lake & River Service for moving freight and ice breaking. For ice breaking, the barge would be tied to the front of a paddlewheeler and pushed ahead of the vessel. It would break the ice by being pushed through it or it would ride up on the ice to break it. The smaller barges were made of wood.<\/p>\n
The video reveals that this barge is, indeed, made of wood. So,\u00a0this sunken barge appears to be\u00a0a remnant\u00a0of an earlier age of steam-driven tugs<\/a> and sternwheelers<\/a> moving freight along the Lake.<\/p>\n Even more interesting is that, if it\u00a0had been used for ice breaking, the barge speaks of a time before the dams of the Columbia River Treaty (1964) tamed the extremes of the high water of spring and the low water of winter.<\/p>\n Prior to the dams, the waters of the West Arm might freeze from one shore across to the opposite one. My mother spoke of the winter of 1934-35 when she (and others) were able to\u00a0walk across the Lake at Nelson. Yet, at present, the most ice the Lake gets is a bit hugging the shore. The difference is not the result of global warming; the change predates any marked warming. The difference is the result of the dams. By replacing the older winter’s shallow and gentle flow with the present deeper and faster flow, surface ice has been\u00a0inhibited.<\/p>\n This sunken barge recalls\u00a0an earlier age on the Lake of steam technology and frozen waters.<\/p>\n Barely discernible at the centre of the picture is a rectangular barge on the floor of the Lake. I don’t know when it was built or when it sank, but it is clearly from\u00a0a different era. April is upon us and the Lake, while still low, is rising. I had hoped to obtain overhead pictures of a sunken barge earlier, but lowest water and a calm surface did not coincide, so I failed to get … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/sunkenbarge150329s.jpg\")
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