James Mclntire Buchanan is
the vice president, secretary and treasurer of the Alberta Motor Boat
Company, Limited, of Edmonton. This business was established in 1912 and
through the intervening period Mr. Buchanan has been associated
therewith, contributing in large measure to the continued growth and
success of the undertaking. This is the only enterprise of the kind in
Alberta and to the company is accorded a liberal and well-deserved
patronage.
James McIntire Buchanan
is a native of Morningside, Edinburgh, Scotland. He was born on the 14th
of February, 1884, and was there reared and educated. Later he went to
Glasgow on the Clyde, where he served a five years' apprenticeship at
the boatbuilding trade, and during the first year of his term of
indenture he received but one dollar per week, while at the end of five
years he was receiving a wage of two dollars and a half per week. When
his apprenticeship was completed he went to Belfast, Ireland, where he
continued to acquaint himself with the business of boatbuilding,
spending nearly two years there and gaining knowledge and experience
throughout the period. While in Belfast he formed the acquaintance of J.
W. Weir and a little later they crossed the Atlantic to Ontario, where
they began contract work in building high-grade motor boats. In that
business they continued for two years and in 1912 came to Edmonton.
The partnership between
Mr. Buchanan and Mr. Weir has since been maintained and today they are
prominently known under the name of the Alberta Motor Boat Company,
Limited, as builders of all kinds of boats, from a canoe to a one
hundred and fifty foot gasoline boat. They build many craft to be used
in connection with the northern fur trade by trappers and hunters and
they also build fine gasoline pleasure boats, made of the strongest
timbers to withstand the strain of the force of the rushing rivers of
the north. Mr. Buchanan and his partner are the only boat-builders of
consequence in the province. Both are young men whose training was most
thorough and comprehensive, as it was received in some of the leading
boatbuilding places on the Clyde in Scotland and also in Belfast. They
have turned out some of the finest boats to be seen in western Canada
and their business has long since assumed extensive and gratifying
proportions. |