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The legendary John Grieve Oliver: Builder, ferryman and entrepreneur

Before the North West Mounted Police could assume their duties however, in the new land, they required places to live – barracks, secure bases of operation (forts), mess halls, jails, commanders’ quarters, storehouses for food, stables and sick horse

Before the North West Mounted Police could assume their duties however, in the new land, they required places to live – barracks, secure bases of operation (forts), mess halls, jails, commanders’ quarters, storehouses for food, stables and sick horse veterinarians’ quarters, etcetera. Enter John Grieve Oliver.

John Oliver was the first white man to visit the site of what is now (140 years later) the thriving and expanding community of Battleford. There was nothing here, which is to say there were no homesteads, no settlers, no white men and no commercial outlets of any kind on either side of the river.

In 1876, John Oliver was commissioned by the government of Alexander Mackenzie to go West as the foreman of a construction crew with instructions to build the territorial government’s quarters at Fort Livingstone. Shortly after arriving at his destination, John Oliver received word to stop work and proceed to Battleford, which had been selected to replace Fort Livingstone as the territorial capital.

Oliver supervised the building of Fort Battleford under the command of James Walker. The construction of buildings and a stockade at Fort Battleford on the scale needed to meet the requirements of 120 men was a daunting task. Regular officers (constables) worked alongside Oliver’s men, and under his direct supervision, to accomplish this backbreaking work.

Oliver also built Government House on the rise overlooking Telegraph Flats (Battleford) and the Battle River. Lt.-Gov. David Laird and the North West Territorial Council governed the vast lands of the North West Territories from this location from 1876 until 1882, at which time the seat of government was transferred to Regina. Government House also provided living quarters for the governor and his family.

Oliver also built a number of other government buildings including the auxiliary residence (white house) immediately west of Government House. The building was last used as a nuns’ residence when Government House housed Saint Charles Scholasticate decades ago. The old nuns’ residence was in relatively good shape. Beautiful religious paintings graced this remarkable structure in the living and drawing rooms.

Tragically, this wonderful 140-year-old heritage structure was destroyed by arsonists in June of 2015. Even more tragic was that Government House, a national heritage site, had been destroyed by fire in 2003. Both buildings were not secured (anyone could walk in to either of them at any time).

John Oliver also built the brick-faced Lands Titles Office (a provincial heritage site, which was recently entered by vandals; mercifully, it survived) about 75 yards west of Government House. One asks, “Who were the stewards and guardians of these priceless heritage properties?” “Where were they?” “ Why were these priceless heritage structures not secured?” How little we care about our history.

After Oliver and his men had honoured their government contracts and completed their building projects, Oliver returned East to secure a timber lease at Turtle Lake where he built a sawmill at the mouth of the Turtle River and a house he named Ogemah, a Cree word for leader. When the Rebellion broke out in 1885, John Oliver and his men fled to the fort at Battleford. Unfortunately Oliver’s buildings were burned to the ground.

Oliver was an expert mechanic. He installed sawmills in Whitefish and Fort Vermilion. He was later employed by the Hudson’s Bay Company who ran steamboats on the Mackenzie River many hundreds of miles from his home at Battleford. Oliver was extraordinarily successful in everything to which he set his mind. He seemed to possess the Midas touch. He built a sawmill, and also the first grain elevator at Battleford. He also owned a highly profitable drug store (dispensary), the Oliver Drug Company for a number of years at Battleford. Most important, John Oliver built the first steam-powered ferry that crossed the North Saskatchewan River from Battleford to North Battleford and beginning in the spring of 1900.

Oliver wasn’t the only ferry operator to ply his trade on the North Saskatchewan River. But he was perhaps the most notable, because his ferry, which he aptly christened the Battleford, was the first steam-powered and engineered unit, and it was constructed to logically confront the rise and fall of the water levels of the North Saskatchewan, with its constantly shifting sand bars. Oliver’s ferry was superior, a reflection of his talent as an engineer, mechanic and builder. Oliver had no equal when came to the design and construction of any building, river scow or ferry.

 An imposing immensely powerful 300-pound Métis giant of a man by the name of Joseph Octave Nolin operated his mentor’s steam-driven ferry on the North Saskatchewan River after Oliver was no longer in business. Nolin lived on the north shore at North Battleford straight south of King Hill. He was known to dive into the water and swim across the river if he felt like it. Currents apparently didn’t bother him. Stories are told of his great physical strength. He once lifted a reticent 600-pound heifer onto his ferry. On another occasion, he jumped into the river to rescue a horse from drowning, pulling it to safety on a sand bar.

And some years before Oliver, the famous Gabriel Dumont, Louis Riel’s military general, ran a ferry (not powered by steam); he also ran a ferry at Gabriel’s Crossing by Fish Creek near Batoche. He closed it down shortly before the Rebellion of 1885 to lead the Métis fighters against the North West Mounted Police at Duck Lake, and against General Middleton and the Canadian army at Fish Creek and Batoche.

Oliver trained and hired a number of ferry operators over the years to share the load. Running a ferry was extremely hard work. It was interesting to note that ferries still plied the North Saskatchewan River for many years after the iron bridge opened in 1909. That’s because you could actually move domesticated farm animals (cattle, sheep, horses, pigs and even chickens and geese), farm machinery and road equipment in large numbers and quantities much faster than across the iron bridge (still standing, but open to pedestrian traffic only). Moreover, there was no chance of angering a rather impatient citizenry who needed to get to North Battleford, or Battleford, for one pressing reason or another.

Near the end of the 19th century, John Oliver took stock of his many successes. He had it all —a fortune, fame, a wonderful wife and family, and the admiration of the citizens on both sides of the river. He had it made, but he didn’t see it that way. Because Oliver needed a challenge – to prove himself and to others that he could do something no one else could — he was continually testing himself. He had done this all of his life.

Historian Don Light summed up Oliver’s attitude perfectly. When John Oliver found out that he had an opportunity to go west as head of a government construction crew, he stated with emphasis, that he “would not miss this opportunity and this wonderful challenge.” But now what else was there to prove, or do? Suddenly he had an epiphany, a revelation. River crossings from Battleford to the north shore and back on a state of the art steam ferry! He noted that the motley assortment of rafts, scows and primitive ferries crossing the North Saskatchewan were inadequate – embarrassing really. So John Oliver decided that he would build the first steam ferry, but not just a run-of-the-mill ferry. He would build the best , a ferry that no one else could build.

John’s first task was to put some ideas together. He made trips to the Lake of the Woods in Southern Ontario, Edmonton and Prince Albert to see firsthand their respective lake and river crossing vessels. He noted their strengths, and their deficiencies, which were many. During the winter of 1898, he drew up his plans. His construction skills included formal drafting. Oliver was an excellent draftsman.

After determining his craft’s overall shape and dimensions, he used mathematics and physics to determine the ferry’s centre of gravity. Based on their respective weights, Oliver was able to determine where to secure the boiler and fire pit, fuel supplies, cabin and smoke stack relative to the gravity centre. And, of course, he needed to know how to distribute the weight of his cargo, livestock and passengers. Other ferrymen used trial and error. Mistakes were common and some ferries capsized.

You can see in the picture of Oliver’s craft that the bow is curved up and streamlined – much like the Viking war ships of old. Oliver used physics. He understood that drag is inversely proportional to thrust. He got this from the great English physicist, Sir Issac Newton.

What did this mean in practical terms for the operation of Oliver’s ferry? If one doubles the thrust, one quadruples the drag. So, the pragmatic thing to do is reduce the drag as much as possible. Hence the upward curved hull and bow. It’s easy to say but difficult to do. The ferry builder would have to be a consummate worker in wood, a carpenter with advanced skills in the use of hand tools – hammer, saw and plane. John Oliver was definitely that.

He found ideal tall and straight stands of white spruce with few knots 60 miles northwest of Edmonton. He brought in logging crews and workhorses to fell, de-branch and skid the logs to the North Saskatchewan River, which were then floated downstream to his saw and planing mill at Battleford. Smaller pieces, for cross buttresses and supports were cut and planed in Oliver’s Turtle Lake sawmill and transported by horse and wagon overland to Battleford.