Alligators of the North

A Canadian invention that very few persons have heard of had a profound effect on the pine logging industry during the late 1800s and the early decades of the 1900s. The logging of eastern white and red pine in Ontario's Ottawa Valley, the Georgian Bay and the north shore of Lake Huron was of major economic and social importance. The accessible stands of timber when logged were routed along fast flowing rivers leading into the Ottawa River or Georgian Bay. Once such stands were depleted, the logging moved into the more distant hinterlands. But how to move the timber? Something was needed that could move booms of logs both on a lake and then overland to the next lake, using its own power. Steam power was the new technology of the day. Enter the inventors, John West and his partner James Peachey, who with their foundry staff built the first steam warping tug, which was unveiled in 1889 at Simcoe, Ontario, the first of many that popularly became known as northern alligators.