Mono-tube Steam Launch Gallery

   At a first sight, the Reverend Joseph Reader of The Pas in modern day Manitoba was not a natural Steamboat man, even if one of his sons had been born on a stern wheeler. However, he had 500miles of Dominion business to conduct, and so in 1884 he received a six-horsepower wood burning steam launch which he christened “Glad Tidings”. It had a Bertram steeple compound with a Roberts flash boiler.

   In Ted Barris’ book “Fire Canoe”, Reader’s grandson in 1974 remembers; “From a cold start you could be on your way in fifteen minutes with dry willow wood burning, but you would lose about two of the four knots if you blew the whistle a prolonged blast.” 

   Nevertheless, from the decks of Glad Tidings, Reverend Reader conducted his agency for 15 years. Certainly, a longer life than any other flash steamer that I have come across. 

 Although I have been unable to find any record of a Roberts flash boiler, the date and details would point to a Herreshoff type of coil boiler;