SG069 - Hydroplane Traditional Geocache

This cache is located along the power line in the Soda Flats area.  Certain areas of this line are extremely wet at different times of the year and you may need to access from a different trail.  The only way to reach this geocache is by foot, horse or ATV.  If you are hiking it is a significant walk, especially if you are making the complete loop.  If the rains come you may have Bad Luck and Bad Timing like Captain Barber.

In the early years the river was a highway and its vehicles were rafts, scows, canoes.  Captain Barber came to the area with one purpose.  To build a paddle wheel steam boat that would do the through trip from Athabasca Landing to Grouard.After several boats and dredging the river his mission was accomplished in September of 1910.  

The railway was hot on his heels & the writing was on the wall for the steamboats.  Not one to sit still for long, in 1913 our entrepreneur & inventor, was on another quest. He and his brother were designing a Hydroplane.  We have found no other reference to it and our conclusion is for all of his good intentions that man couldn't win for losing.