Reflections Of Alligator Boat Hamilton H. In Norland

KAWARTHA LAKES-In the nineteenth century, many of the largest ventures in central Ontario exported timber or lumber. Early on, much of the export trade was floated downstream to Quebec City, where it was loaded on sailing ships for the transatlantic crossing. It took a lot of ingenuity to devise a way to float timber downstream, across lakes, overcoming waterfalls and rapids using the currents, wind and muscle power. In the mid nineteenth century, many pines fell along the lakes that were later named the Kawarthas. By the 1870s or 1880s, much of the merchantable old grown timber had been harvested as operations shifted north to Haliburton. Instead of being floated to Quebec City, much of the material was sawn at mills in settlements with a railway connection—though Bobcaygeon’s Mossom Boyd managed to get by with steamers towing lumber to Lindsay, where it was reloaded on rail cars.

On the Burnt River and its tributaries, the water flowed relatively rapidly and could be used to sweep logs downstream—though the many falls and rapids posed challenges. The Gull River system contained many lakes, so the lumber companies needed a way to get logs across flat water. For much of the nineteenth century, they relied on capstan cribs. These rafts had a winch mounted on the deck, with arms extending outward so horses could walk in a circle turning the winch. Some smaller capstan cribs were human powered. Ceaselessly turning the wheel made men sick and was one of the worst jobs in lumbering, perhaps exceeded only by the job of the man on the capstan who handled the slack rope, his hands always wet with freezing water. The capstan rafts were often manufactured in the woods by the shanty or driving crews. The capstan crib would drop anchor (often about 400lbs in weight), and use the winch to pull booms of logs across a lake (a boom was a floating mass of logs, surrounded and contained by floating boom timbers.) The same winch could slowly pull the raft across the lake when attached to a stationary object like a tree.

Some of the larger lakes in the region would take days to navigate with a capstan crib. If the wind picked up, a boom of timber could exert a huge amount of force on the raft, or break the boom, scattering the logs all over the lake. Once steamships were available, they were a faster way to tow logs across the lakes. On the course of the Trent Valley Canal (which was still under construction), steamships were common, but it would not pay to operate steamers on the isolated lakes further north just for the annual log drive.

West & Peachey of Simcoe, Ontario introduced the alligator tug boat in 1889, which incorporated features of steamships and capstan cribs. Alligators were amphibious, flat-bottomed boats. On a lake they could propel themselves forward with the paddlewheel, then tow themselves overland using logs as rollers with their winch. Just like a capstan, alligators would drop anchor, and use their winch to tow booms of logs across a lake. But they were much faster than a horse powered capstan—reportedly cutting a month off the drives from the far reaches of the Trent Watershed. One alligator was recorded towing 65,000 logs at once—no horse could do that!

J.W. Howry & Sons operated the Hamilton H. which was 35 feet long by 9 feet wide and drew just 24 inches of water. John W. Howry of Saginaw, Michigan was one of the best-known timber barons of the Great Lakes region. By the 1890s, some firms like Mossom Boyd Company were moving operations to other regions, because the drives were becoming ever longer, as timber limits were increasing in price. Nevertheless, J.W. Howry & Sons leased Fenelon Falls’ Red Mill from R.C. Smith’s estate. The refit it with new machinery and electric light to reopen it as the largest mill on the Upper Trent Watershed. Unfortunately, the company had two catastrophic fires in 1896 and became insolvent.

Like J.W. Howry & Sons’ Red Mill, the era of alligators in the Kawarthas would be short lived. Only the largest lumber companies could afford to invest in these unusual tug boats. The Gilmour Company of Trenton also operated alligators, but by 1900 the increasing costs of operations, including driving logs from Algonquin Park to Trenton (which was located in a different watershed!) had bankrupted that company as well. The Mossom Boyd Company was transitioning operations to Cowichan, British Columbia. When they bought a new alligator in 1897, it was shipped to the West Coast.

The original photograph provides an unusual view of an alligator. Because they only operated for a few years, serving a practical function, there are not many images of alligators, and it is particularly special to have an image of the boat moving overland. It was taken from former site of the A.A. McLaughlin’s Norland sawmill, which was located on the south bank of the river, as it winds its way downstream to Shadow Lake. McLaughlin’s first mill opened in 1861, but was built overtop of the river, prompting a second mill to be constructed on shore by 1867. Norland did not have either a steamship or railway connection so the export of large quantities of lumber was impractical, and McLaughlin moved on to other ventures. By the time this photograph was taken in the mid 1890s, McLaughlin’s former mill was gone, dismantled in 1892. But his old home and stable are visible in the background.