To the Steamboat Companies in Alaska and the Yukon Territory

Dateline: April 25, 2024. Last update: May 20, 2024.

• Tuesday, February 22, 1898: Daily News-Advertiser (Vancouver, B.C.)

    Four companies are granted certificates of incorporation. They are: The Canadian Development Company, of Victoria, capital $360,000; the Columbia Lumber & Trading Company, capital $70,000, head office at Nelson; Grand Forks Mercantile Company, Limited, capital $50,000, head office at Grand Forks, and the Gypsy Queen Mining Company, Limited, capital $50,000, head office Victoria, to operate on the Yukon and Hootalinqua rivers and to do a general mining business.

    The objects of the Canadian Development Company are thus set forth:

    (a.) To acquire all the rights, properties, assets and privileges acquired and now held by E. C. Platt, of the City, County and State of New York, as agent and upon trust for the promoters of the Company (and for the shareholders thereof upon incorporation subject as hereinafter expressed), that is to say:

    (1.) By purchase from Francis M. York and Samuel Horace Davie, both of Victoria, of all the properties and assets of the firm carrying on business in British Columbia, as the Teslin and Yukon Transportation Company for the price of $60,000 in cash and an interest in the capital stock of the Company upon incorporation equal in nominal value to £12,000 sterling, fully paid-up and non-assessable:

    (2.) By assignment from Clarence H. Mackay and H. Maitland Kersey of all the rights and privileges possessed by them under and by virtue of two certain contracts, each bearing date the 21st day of December, 1897, and made by them with the firm of James Rees & Sons Company, of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, and W. & A. Fletcher Company, of Jersey City, New Jersey:

    (3.) By assignment from H. Maitland Kersey, of all his right, title and interest in and to the wooden steamboat hulls now in course of construction at the Star Shipyard, Victoria, and the materials and plant obtained for the carrying out of such construction;

    And in consideration therefor to reimburse the said E. C. Platt with the several sums, aggregating $85,000, disbursed by him in the premises; to assume all obligations arising under the said two contracts and in and about the construction of the said steamboat hulls, and to issue to the said Francis M. York and Samuel Horace Davie fully paid-up and non-assessable shares of the Company to the amount of $58,500, as the equivalent of said £12,000 sterling.

• Wednesday, April 20, 1898: The Vancouver Daily World (Vancouver, B.C.)

    Superintendent F. M. Yorke, of the Canadian Development Co, of which H. Maitland Kersey, late manager of the White Star line, is the managing director, is in the city looking after the shipment of the engines and machinery, just received here over the Canadian Pacifle line from Hoboken, N. J. The machinery is for three steamers which the company are building, two at Victoria and one at Teslin. Of the company's fleet of eight steamers, six are stern-wheelers and two are twin-serew propellers. Two of the stern-wheelers, those being built in Victoria, are steel-cased, and will be fitted with engines of 70 h.p. The propellers will be used on the ocean. One of the stern-wheelers will ply on the Stickine and five on the Teslin-Dawson route, that is to say, they will run from the head of Teslin Lake, across the lake, a distance of 120 miles, and down the Lewes and Hootalinqua rivers and the Yukon to Dawson, a total distance of 450 miles, which the new service will be able to make in the shortest possible time. The company's first steamer is expected to sail on April 28th, and the next on May 1st. Three steamers will ply on the Stickine for about a month before leaving for the north. The fleet for the Dawson-Teslin line will go in by the Yukon about June 1st.
    Mr. Yorke, in conversation with a World reporter, took it for granted that a railway line from the head of navigation on the Stickine river to Teslin must be built, even if the Canadian Government was obliged to do the work. The alternative simply means the whole of the summer traffic to the gold felds going up the Yukow in the open months, and over the pass to Lake Bennett in the winter. It is a matter now of engineering record, verified to a great extent by the rough measurements of numerous mining prospectors who have "packed" along the serpentine path from Glenora to Teslin Lake, that the distance is, roughly speaking, about 480 miles as a cow would walk, and is actually 410 as a crow flies. The railroad would probably strike a happy medium between the cow path and the crow line distances.

• Tuesday, June 5, 1898: Daily News-Advertiser (Vancouver, B.C.)

• July 30, 1898: "A New Company. The Canadian Development Co. has got its first boat here, the Anglian, and is now represented in Dawson by H. Maitland Kersey, managing director of the company. Mr. Kersey was at one time manager of the famous White Star line with headquarters in New York. The company owns two other beats besides the Anglian. The Columbian and Canadian, large stern-wheelers are expected to arrive shortly by way of St. Michaels. The Anglian will probably ply between Dawson and White Horse rapids while the two larger boats wil! take the lower river. Mr. F. W. Tronce has been appointed agent in Dawson." (KN)

• July 30, 1898: "The Canadian Development company has a sawmill in operation at Lake Teslin. From the head of the lake to the mouth of the Hootalinqua is the finest kind of a waterway. There are a few sharp bends, but nowhere less than seven feet of water." (KN)

• August 2, 1898: "F. M. Yorke will be one of the passengers by the Alpha for the North this evening. He goes to take charge for his company of the river steamer Victorian, which is to be towed trom Wrangel to St. Michael's. His company has now four steamers on the Yukon, the Canadian, Columbian, Austrian [Australian] and Indian [Anglian]. Their other steamer, the Monte Cristo, will be retained on the Stickine." (The Vancouver Semi-Weekly World)

• 1898, built the shipyards downriver from West Dawson, with 4 sets of ways (Knutson).

• May 1899, awarded the mail contract serving Dawson.

• 1899 season, based at Bennett, with a shipyard at West Dawson; operating the ANGLIAN, AUSTRALIAN, CANADIAN, COLUMBIAN, TASMANIAN, VICTORIAN and ZEALANDIAN (letterhead). The company also chartered the BAILEY, JOSEPH CLOSSET and SYBIL (Dawson Daily News, Mining Edition).

• June 16, 1899: "Harry Morton paid a high compliment to the Canadian Development company's fleet with which Maitland Kersey is prominently identified. Their boats were the best, he said, and the crews and pilots on them were far ahead of anything else on the river. The boats were furnished with the Turner steam steering gear, patented in Vancouver and which have proved to be the very thing needed for navigation in shallow treacherous waters." (The Province)

• 1899, constantly being taken to court for huge overcharges, despite contracts having been signed; the company usually won.

• December 19, 1899, the ad below was published in the Victoria Daily Times.

• March 20, 1900: "Travellers from Bennett report that the White Pass & Yukon Railway and the Canadian Development Company has amalgamated. The Canadian Development Company has one of the largest if not the largest and most elegant line of steamers between Bennett and Dawson. It was reported last year that the railroad and the Development Company were on exceptionally close terms. Mr. H. Maitland Kersey was recently elected General Manager of the Canadian Development Company for the ensuing year." (The Daily News-Advertiser)

• May 17, 1900: "The Canadian Development Company has completed the purchase of the river steamer Sybil, now lying in winter quarters in the Hootalinqua River. The Sybil is a vessel about the size of the R. P. Rithet, and will run in conjunction with the other boats belonging to the Company, between White Horse and Dawson, providing a through route for the White Pass & Yukon Company. The price paid for the Sybil was between $40,000 and $50,000. The Company contemplates placing a steamer on the Atlin route when navigation fully opens." (The Daily News-Advertiser)

• May 20, 1900: Starting on this date, White Pass & Yukon Route ads include the Canadian Development Company - the one seen below was in The Daily News-Advertiser.
  

• Fall 1900, put out of business by extreme low water at the busiest time of year (COR722, 1903)

• February 2, 1901: "C.P.R. Wants W.P.R. - The Big Canadian Company Negotiating for the Yukon Road. Vancouver, B.C., Jan. 24 - It is reported that negotiations are in progress for the absorption of the White Pass & Yukon Railway and the Canadian Development Company, two English corporations, by the Canadian Pacific Railway Co." (The Yukon Sun)

March 13, 1901: Click on the timetable below to greatly enlarge it in a new window.

• April 1, 1901, the British Yukon Navigation Company, a White Pass subsidiary, took control of 17 steamers owned by the Canadian Development Company; the Yukon River steamers ANGLIAN, BAILEY, CANADIAN, COLUMBIAN, JOSEPH CLOSSET, MARY F. GRAFF, SYBIL, VICTORIAN, YUKONER and ZEALANDIAN; the lake steamers AUSTRALIAN, GLEANER, SCOTIA and TASMANIAN; and the Stikine River steamers HAMLIN, McCONNELL and OGILVIE. Read a newspaper article with details here.