The Skeena River is British Columbia’s fastest flowing waterway, often rising as much as in a day and can fluctuate as much as sixty feet between high and low water. For the steamboat captains, that made it one of the toughest navigable rivers in British Columbia. Nevertheless, at least sixteen paddlewheel steamboats plied the Skeena River from the coast to Hazelton from 1864 to 1912.