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1896-9. Some wealthy British prospectors who looked down their noses at America refused to step foot in any of the States or Alaska and chose to access the goldfield via purely Canadian routes, which required much water travel via large and small waterways.
This was a very rugged way to reach the destination and required much "portage," which simply means they had to physically carry their boats where the rivers were too shallow to navigate.
Near the end of their travels when they were exhausted with disease, cold, fatigue etc., they had to dump part of their load, including half of the boat!! Yeah, they sawed their boat in half, dumped it along with non-essential supplies, and went onward with half a boat!
Throughout the historical account I'm reading, there are frequent references to sawing the boat and using half boats. How the hell do you use half of a boat? Backing up a bit, when they purchased their boats, the boatmakers would point out a line painted on the boat where they would begin the sawing process.
Internet search engines revealed nothing regarding the practice of sawing a boat in half or the use of half boats.
1896-9. Some wealthy British prospectors who looked down their noses at America refused to step foot in any of the States or Alaska and chose to access the goldfield via purely Canadian routes, which required much water travel via large and small waterways.
This was a very rugged way to reach the destination and required much "portage," which simply means they had to physically carry their boats where the rivers were too shallow to navigate.
Near the end of their travels when they were exhausted with disease, cold, fatigue etc., they had to dump part of their load, including half of the boat!! Yeah, they sawed their boat in half, dumped it along with non-essential supplies, and went onward with half a boat!
Throughout the historical account I'm reading, there are frequent references to sawing the boat and using half boats. How the hell do you use half of a boat? Backing up a bit, when they purchased their boats, the boatmakers would point out a line painted on the boat where they would begin the sawing process.
Internet search engines revealed nothing regarding the practice of sawing a boat in half or the use of half boats.
Any insights?
The could be referring to shallow draft riverboat vessels that have no hull, they are simply rafts, buoyant logs bound together that float in the water rather than on top of the water. Think of the Huck Finn raft, only much larger. So sawing it in half would simply just make it smaller.
There was a mostly water-based route (lakes and rivers) from Edmonton, as well as overland routes (from Edmonton and A s h c r o f t, BC). There is a movie, Gold (2013), starring Nina Hoss, that depicts taking the A s h c r o f t route: Gold (2013) - IMDb
Very few using these "inland" routes actually made it to the gold fields.
Why is "A s h c r o f t" (no spaces) being censored by City Data???? Ashcroft (A italicized) gets by, but not ********. Why, oh why?
Last edited by CrazyDonkey; 10-05-2017 at 02:13 PM..
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