Baillie-Grohman Canal facts for kids
The Baillie-Grohman Canal was a special waterway built a long time ago in British Columbia, Canada. It connected two big rivers, the Columbia River and the Kootenay River, at a place now called Canal Flats.
A rich adventurer named William Adolf Baillie-Grohman built this canal. He finished it in 1889. The government allowed him to own a lot of land if he built this canal. But the canal turned out to be very expensive and wasn't used much at all. It was only used three times by boats! The last time, in 1902, a boat captain named Frank P. Armstrong even used dynamite to blow up the canal's gates so his boat could pass through!
Contents
Where the Canal Was Built
The Baillie-Grohman Canal was built in a very unique spot. The Columbia River starts at Columbia Lake and flows north. The Kootenay River flows south, but then it turns and comes very close to Columbia Lake, only about a mile away! This narrow strip of land was called Canal Flats.
People thought that connecting these two rivers with a canal would be a great way to move goods and people by boat. Back then, trains were also being built, making it easier to travel long distances. The area between the train lines in Golden, BC, and Jennings, Montana, was about 300 miles long. A canal at Canal Flats could have connected a big part of this area for boat travel.
William A. Baillie-Grohman's Big Idea
In the early 1880s, William Adolf Baillie-Grohman, a wealthy adventurer from Europe, visited the Kootenay area. He became very interested in a flat area further down the Kootenay River, called Kootenay Flats. The problem was that this area often flooded.
Baillie-Grohman had an idea: he wanted to redirect some of the Kootenay River's water into the Columbia River through Canal Flats. He thought this would help stop the flooding in Kootenay Flats. However, this plan would have caused more water in the Columbia River, possibly flooding the new train tracks and other areas near Golden.
The government said no to his plan to divert the river. But they did agree to give him a lot of land if he built a shipping canal with a special gate called a lock. A lock was needed because the Kootenay River was 11 feet higher than Columbia Lake.
Getting Ready to Build
Baillie-Grohman had to bring a lot of supplies to the canal site, including a sawmill to cut wood for the locks and shelters. He also hired many workers, including a skilled builder. But there was a big problem: the only boat available, the Duchess, had sunk!
Moving heavy equipment 124 miles by river was the only way. The government said Baillie-Grohman had to finish the canal by the summer of 1889, or he wouldn't get the land. With the Duchess sunk, he was in trouble. Luckily, a man named Jack Hayes in Golden had parts of a steamboat: a barge, a boiler from a steam plow, and parts from an old tugboat. Hayes didn't know how to put them together, so Baillie-Grohman's builder helped him finish the boat, which they called the Clive.
The Clive was very heavy. The Columbia River was shallow and full of "snags" (dead trees stuck in the riverbed) that could block or sink a boat. Because of these challenges, it took the Clive 23 days to travel just 100 miles!
Building the Canal and Locks
Most of the hard work of building the canal was done by Chinese immigrant laborers. Some people thought the canal had a big flaw from the start. Baillie-Grohman only had to build the canal and its locks. He didn't have to clear or deepen the river leading up to the canal. This meant it would be very hard for boats to even reach the canal!
When the canal was finished, a worker named E.M. Sandilands helped break down a temporary dam that was holding back the Kootenay River. When the water flowed through, he realized he had helped make the entire Selkirk and Purcell mountain ranges into an island! With the canal, this huge mountain area was completely surrounded by the Columbia River, the Arrow Lakes, the Kootenay Lake and River, and the canal itself.
Size and Cost
The canal was finished on July 29, 1889. It was about 5,049 ft (1,539 m) long and 45 ft (14 m) wide. Baillie-Grohman raised money for the project in England and spent a lot of his own money on it. The locks alone cost $100,000, which was enough to build five or six steamboats like the J.D. Farrell!
Not Used Very Often
Even though it cost so much, the Baillie-Grohman Canal was only used three times by steamboats.
- The Gwendoline in 1893 and 1894:
In 1893, Captain Armstrong built a boat called the Gwendoline. He took it through the canal to Golden to finish building it. It seems the canal was already damaged, so they had to pull the boat out of the water, take it apart a bit, and roll it along! Armstrong convinced the government to fix the canal. In 1894, he brought the Gwendoline back through the repaired canal normally.
- The North Star in 1902:
By 1902, trains were taking over, and steamboats weren't as busy. Captain Armstrong, who had been away, decided to move his boat, the North Star, from the Kootenay River side to the Columbia River side. It took a whole month to get the North Star through the canal because it was falling apart. Plus, the North Star was 130 feet long, which was 30 feet longer than the lock! Armstrong solved this by tearing out the lock gates, building temporary dams with sandbags, and then blowing up the lower dam with dynamite to let his boat pass!
What Happened to the Canal
After the North Star blasted its way through, the canal lost any value it had. The canal and its locks slowly fell apart. In 1920, a writer named Lewis R. Freeman visited Canal Flats and saw only traces of the canal and a collapsing wall of rotting logs, which he thought were the remains of a lock gate. Another engineer, M.J. Lorraine, found and photographed similar ruins in 1922.
Images for kids
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Chinese construction crew at work on the canal. Surveyors are shown at upper right.
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Lock construction at Canal Flats, 1888.
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The completed lock at Canal Flats, around 1889. The wood was cut from local ponderosa pine trees.
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Canal construction in August 1888, possibly showing the full depth of the digging.
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A map of the Baillie-Grohman Canal and Canal Flats from around 1922.
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The remains of the lock around 1922.
