Captain Thomas Shorts

Old Kelowna, Capt. Thomas Shorts. ca. 1890

In 1882 Thomas Shorts arrived in the Okanagan valley via the old Fur Brigade Trail after having spent 25 years prospecting and moving from place to place. He staked his claim on 320 acres of land which he would call Shorts Point shortly after.

Seizing an opportunity he saw, Shorts acquired a 22-foot rowboat and became one of the first people of non-indigenous descent to use Okanagan lake for commercial travel. Shorts named his rowboat Ruth Shorts, after his mother. He would row it up and down the lake every day boasting that he was so accustomed to the motions that he could row all day without feeling any fatigue. At night he would camp out wherever he docked the boat underneath a tree with any passengers he may have had camping out under surrounding trees. During storms Shorts was known to drop his anchor and proclaim, "There, Captain Shorts has done his duty, now let Providence look after the rest".

Three years later Shorts would leave behind the rowboat in exchange for a steamboat. His first was the Mary Victoria Greenhow which ran on coal-oil, she was not just Shorts's first steamboat but the first steamboat on Okanagan lake. During her maiden voyage Shorts realized that the ship had a larger appetite for fuel than anticipated as the engine was not prepared for the weight of a freight passage, as the intended use of this engine was for pleasure launches, and he had to take oil from the lamps he acquired from homes along the way leaving a path of unlit houses in the ship's wake. Unfortunately, shortly after launch the Mary Victoria Greenhow caught fire and was destroyed. Shorts however kept going unperturbed and used the engine from the Mary Victoria Greenhow in the building of his next ship the Jubilee which now ran on wood, and was launched in 1887. Unfortunately, during the winter of 1889 the Jubilee got stuck in the ice and promptly sank upon the arrival of spring. Shorts was once again unperturbed, he salvaged the engine from the Jubilee before it sank and put it in a new ship that was actually a barge he had previously used which he gave the name the City of Vernon.

Old Kelowna, Mary Victoria Greenhow. ca 1886

The City of Vernon was just a small boat meant to act as a temporary vessel that allowed Shorts to continue his business while waiting on the construction of a new ship with his new business partner Thomas Ellis who wanted to extend his business practices farther than cattle ranching. As soon as the new steamer which was named the Penticton was completed, Shorts sold the City of Vernon.

The Penticton was an important vessel on the lake because it was the first to have accommodations for passengers, though they were not necessarily the most luxurious of accommodations. However revolutionary the inclusion of a passenger accommodation was travelers were made to question whether it was worth it to travel on the Penticton because she was almost never on time whilst Shorts was in charge. Much of this tardiness can be credited to the fact that Shorts was not known for scheduling as he seemingly did not believe in it and only really ran service as the "spirit" moved him. As a result of this almost devil-may-care attitude of Shorts's, businesses and passengers were forced to be prepared for him to show up whenever and wherever. He also did not run the most relaxing of services given he was known to force his passengers to chop wood for the boiler themselves if the ship ever ran low on fuel. He still charged full fare when he did this and some passengers have recounted Shorts making his disapproval of their chopping known if it was not up to his standards.

Ellis and Shorts raised the funds for the Penticton partially with donations from Ellis himself, as well as, profits from the sale of Short's 320 acre ranch. Shorts sold his land in 1889 to Richard Granville Hare Viscount Ennismore and John Walter Edward Scott-Douglas-Montague for the enormous sum of $4000. These two gentlemen from England had originally come to the Valley for some simple bighorn hunting but much like many others who came to the valley, they enjoyed the area so much they decided they would like a piece of it. However despite paying such an exorbitant sum for the land they did not stay for long and Shorts seized the opportunity to lease the land back. Shorts then sublet the land out to the Gellatly family who intended to use the land for potato farming. The Gellatley family however moved away from Shorts point when they realized they would be unable to purchase the land. Shorts would then sublet the land again to Robert Napier Dundas before the land was purchased from Richard Granville Hare Viscount Ennismore and John Walter Edward Scott-Douglas-Montague by Capt. James Cameron Dun-Waters who renamed Shorts Point to Fintry in 1909, and although the land no longer bears Shorts's name the creek which runs through it still does.

Greater Vernon Museum and Archives Photo Collection, S.S. Penticton on Okanagan Lake. 1893

Captain Shorts did not appreciate when the CPR expanded into steamboats on Okanagan lake with the launch of the S.S. Aberdeen in 1893 and likened the CPR to a large octopus. Despite the fact that at this point Shorts did not own a boat running service on the lake having sold the Penticton in 1892. Shorts set about to challenge the "Canadian Pacific Octopus" and its suffocating tentacles. Shorts acquired a small boat which he christened Lucy and began service again in hopes of defeating this great enemy of his. However, this venture of his was a grand disaster and he gave up boating all together out of revulsion.

While Captain Shorts's association with ships on the lake is what he is most known for he was also heavily associated with gold and the search for it all throughout his life. He spent about 13 years of his young life in America in search of gold and working other odd jobs before returning to Canada in 1870 and was associated with the Cassiar, Skagit, and Omineca gold mines before coming to the Okanagan. Shorts's association with Gold did not however come to an end when he came to the Okanagan as in 1888 when gold was struck in Granite Creek, Shorts was the one responsible for carrying large amounts of supplies up the lake where they would be loaded onto trains and taken into the Similkameen using the Jubilee, and a barge that he had to construct to keep up with the new demand that would eventually become the City of Vernon. In this same period of time Shorts purchased rights to Torpedo Mine and later the Harris Mines in association with Thomas Ellis. He did not however holds these mines for long as he sold his rights to them around the same time he sold his ranch. He eventually left the Okanagan for Alaska to continue his tireless search for gold. This search would continue until finally in 1912 at the age of 75 he decided to retire to Hope where he would reside until his death in 1921, after unfortunately never finding the fortune in gold he so obviously hoped he would.