Dreaming of steam

Got Steam? The Northwest Steam Society bumper sticker says it all. The group--home to a steam donkey, a calliope, remote controlled model steam boats, and vessels of all configurations--held its annual meet at the Elochoman Marina last weekend.

The club has 275 members, most from Washington, Oregon and British Columbia. The group rotates annual meets throughout the region.

Lew Parsons of Hoodsport brought a larger than life steam donkey, permanently mounted to a lowboy trailer. It sat in the parking lot at the marina drawing loggers and others with a powerful whistle.

The boats--the Uno from Lopez Island, the Tippecanoe--a steam-powered canoe, and the Cheng-Tze sternwheeler gleaming with polished brass from Spokane were among the boats that lined C dock, attracting curious, smiling visitors.

The steam engines run on various kinds of fuel. The Cheng-Tze takes wood and oil; Parsons’ steam donkey uses waste oil from his truck equipment repair business. The Linda J runs on biodiesel.

The Tenacious, operating without a condenser, circled Elochoman Slough making the chug, chug of a small steam engine. As other boats steamed up and moved into the slough, whistling to each other, kayakers and fishermen smiled and waved, giving thumbs up.

George Badger and his son, Kennedy Badger, both of Madras, Oregon, took their first steamboat ride with Doug Brookens on the Tenacious Friday afternoon.

“Unbelievable,” George Badger said. “I’ll be looking for my next ride.” Badger said he’s been interested in steam for a long time because “it rans this nation for so long,” and has built a parade train.

Kennedy said the ride was quiet and smooth. Both were impressed with Brookens, who invited them along and let them take the tiller for the ride.

Stephanie Hylton of Lopez Island worked to start the club in 1973 when she bought the Uno. Built a sailing vessel on Lopez Island in 1894, the Uno is the oldest boat in the club. “It’s a toy and a hobby. The boats are warm and slow. That’s exactly what I like,” Hylton said.

Being the female skipper of the small steamer draws various reactions. Women usually say, ‘that’s cool,’ when they see her sitting in boat, Hylton said.

Men have a harder time believing that Hylton is the skipper and operator. One man walked back and forth several times, before he asked, “When’s your husband getting back?” Hylton said.

“I said, ask me a question. He started with whose boat is it? Then he asked about the mechanics and I answered his questions.”

Norm Davis, who coordinated the meet from his home in Astoria, said Hylton is one of the best at explaining the steam principles.

Davis joined the club in 1999 and was a “dock hand and a deck hand until 2002,” when he acquired a boat he’d been “lusting for,” the Mis Chief.

On Saturday, the craft lined up for what was planned as a panoramic photograph. Ron Karabaich from Tacoma, brought a 100-year-old Circuit camera, but the current interfered with the plan, so boats roped themselves together.

Ryan Plutt, a newer member from Renton, was a traffic engineer until recently. He brought a red lifeboat hull, the Inchcliffe Castle, named for a tramp steamer in a short story by Guy Gilpatric.

“I have to see if she floats,” Plutt said, who has plans that include a pilothouse.

Stephen Morrison and his wife, Susan, who live in Tucson, Arizona, visited their children in Seattle before they attended their fourth annual meet.

But Morrison wasn’t the furthest from home. Wolfgang Schlager, a retired shipping company executive, who lives with his wife, Angelika in Bellingham, brought their 16 year-old grandnephew, Eric Schlager, visiting from Nuremberg, Germany. Wolfgang pilots the Rose.

Also on Saturday, the steamboat paraded to Puget Island, up Birnie Slough and back to Cathlamet, drawing Island residents out of their houses and onto the dikes.

Ebbie Hantke, who lives in a sternwheeler of his own on Birnie Slough, sat on his roof to watch. People collected at the SR 4 crossing of Birnie Slough.

“In the past it was typical to have 30 boats at a meet,” Davis said. But the economy has taken a toll, and now fewer boats from British Columbia participate.

For Parsons, whose father had three steam donkeys, the extra expense requires a trade off.

“I love it and it’s a break,” he said, but it’s more expensive. In the past weeks, he had been to shows at Longbranch near Tacoma and to Brooklyn near Raymond, where the Saginaw Lumber Company operated.

Like others, Parsons zeroed in on the Willamette Shay steam locomotive sitting by the Wahkiakum Historical Museum. “It’s a shame it’s not running,” he said.