York Boat

The York boat was an inland boat used by the Hudson's Bay Company to carry furs and trade goods along inland waterways in Rupert's Land and the Columbia District. It was named after York Factory, the headquarters of the HBC, and modeled after the Orkney yole (itself a descendant of the Viking longship). York boats were preferable to the canoes, used by Nor'west Company Voyageurs as cargo carriers, because of their larger size, greater capacity, and improved stability in rough water. The boat's heavy wood construction also gave it an advantage in travelling through rocks or ice; it was much more immune to tears and punctures. That advantage became a disadvantage, though, when portaging was necessary. The boat was far too heavy to carry, and it was necessary instead to cut a path through the brush, lay poplar rollers, and laboriously drag the boat overland. Regardless of the circumstances, crewing a York boat was an arduous task, and those who chose this life faced "unending toil broken only by the terror of storms," according to explorer Sir John Franklin.

The York boat had a length of about 14 metres (46 ft) and the largest could carry over 6 tonnes (13,000 lb) of cargo. It had a pointed bow, a flat bottom, and a stern angled upward at 45°, making beaching and launching easier. The boat was propelled both by oars and by a canvas sail, and steered with the use of a long steering pole, or a rudder when under sail. It had a crew of between six and eight men. The first boat was built in 1749 and by the late 18th century, boat building stations existed from James Bay to Fort Chipewyan. The advent of the steamboat at the beginning of the 19th century signaled the end for the York boat.

A style of boat slightly different from the York boat was made specifically for use in the Columbia District and constructed on the Columbia River. In 1811 the American Pacific Fur Company introduced the use of bateaux on the Columbia River, heavy boats made of split or sawn cedar. After the NWC took over the PFC the practice of using bateaux was quickly adopted, birch bark canoes having proved too dangerous on the rivers of the Pacific Northwest. In the 1820s Joe McKay of the HBC described the Columbia District bateaux as "made from quarter-inch pine board, and are thirty-two feet long, and six and a half feet wide in midships, with both ends sharp, and without a keel—worked, according to the circumstances of the navigation, with paddles, or with oars."

Travelling from Lake Winnipeg to Hudson Bay by York boat was the subject of the Canadian TV documentary Quest for the Bay in 2002.

York boat races can still be seen in Norway House, Manitoba. Racers compete for a $25,000 top prize in a celebration called Treaty & York Boat Days.

In June 2011, GeoTourism Canada and Flow North Paddling Company recreated a historical expedition on the Peace River, rowing a 10-metre long York boat 538 km from Fort Dunvegan to Fort Vermilion.