The Beaver : first steamship on the west coast

"The Beaver was the first, and for many years the only, steamship to work on the west coast of North America. Built for the Hudson's Bay Company, she was launched in London in 1835 and came out around Cape Horn under sail, a journey of over seven months. When she arrived at Fort Vancouver (now Vancouver, Washington), on the Columbia River, her paddlewheels were assembled and her boiler fired up for her first working trip under steam power. The Hudson's Bay Company intended her to serve as a floating fur-trade post, and over the years, skippered by Captain W.H. McNeill, she travelled many thousands of miles up and down the coast, in the quest for furs. Later, she was chartered to the Royal Navy for use as a survey vessel under the command of Lieutenant Daniel Pender, and again, she probed every waterway of the intricate coast. In 1874 the Beaver was sold and worked as a towboat until, in 1888, she was wrecked on the rocks of Prospect Point, at the entrance to Vancouver Harbour. [..] This is the 'biography' of the Beaver, a ship that made an unparallelled contribution to the history of the west coast."--Provided by the publisher.