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The Dumoine River Alligator Boats

" Alligators" were a steam powered amphibious warping tug. Invented by Canadian, John Ceburn West, and made in Simcoe, Ontario between 1889 and 1932 by West & Peachey. Alligators; were a rugged scow-shaped, shallow draft boat, fitted with side mounted paddle wheel, powered by steam and provided a cable winch and large anchor. Using the winch Alligators could pull themselves over land, around portages as much as 1 to 2 1/2 miles per day. They could haul a boom of some 60,000 logs over water.  In 1894 Canadian lumber and railway baron J.R Booth purchased his first of many "Alligators".  His first tug #20, named the Joseph Taylor was transported overland and assembled at Lac Dumoine.  Some 230 tugs were produced and two sit on the shores of the Dumoine River slowly over time "Reclaimed" by the landscape they once roamed. 

Along with these relics a geographical anomaly "Alligator Point" the shape of an alligator within the landscape, discovered while touring an island within the river.