While many historical books are written on boats, there are few in-depth biographies of the men piloting these vessels. Running the White Water focuses on the Barringtons, a family who epitomized commercial riverboating in the Northwest during gold rush times and beyond. It is a commemoration of the kind of men who helped open up the North and lived river life during commercial river running in Alaska and Canada.
The pioneering Barrington family ran a course of riverboating through the Northwest. First with father Ed Barrington in Washington, then with sons Eddie, Harry, Syd and Hill in the goldfields of the North, readers will draw a breath at the daring episodes these men experienced.
Edward Barrington Sr. launched his Eclipse into Washington waters and began operations on the inland sea in the mid-1850s. The Barrington family careers then, first father in Puget Sound, and later sons in Washington, the Yukon, British Columbia and Alaska, generally paralleled the span of commercial riverboating in the Northwest.
This story starts in the late 1880s as the boys, one after another, hire on with ships plying the waters of Puget Sound. And then the Klondike Gold Rush in Canada begins. When news burst upon the world in 1897, the boys—in the right place at the right time, with the right personalities—grab their gear and head north. Like their parents, the young men need fortitude and humor as they face, and embrace, the most exciting frontier of a decade.
Four of the boys eventually make their livelihood running boats throughout the Pacific Northwest region. However, Washington State, where the Barringtons grew up and where they located during the winter months when they weren’t up north, remained their family home throughout the years. While Washington supplied the strength and stability for the brothers, the North provided the excitement and challenge craved. The combination created rich, unique and fulfilled lives.
Routine pursuits did not satisfy these entrepreneurs. Storytellers, gamblers, men of reckless daring, these adventurers, like their vessels, experienced a lusty existence marked with triumph and tragedy. Sydney and Hill, in particular, found their careers in Alaska and Canada, and spent half a year overall for nearly fifty years in the north, riverboating and mining.
A time of daring and a time of hustle, readers can almost feel the cool air, hear the whistles, bells, throb and swish of the paddle-wheel in tune with every pounding heart, the shouting of voices thrilling through the air, “Steamboat’s a’ coming! Here she comes!”
This book will appeal to those interested in biographies, rivers and oceans. It will also be of value to librarians in public, high school and university libraries and historical organizations. Written in general audience style, it is heavily endnoted for more serious historical readers. |
