"rossland" was built at nakusp at the shipyard owned by the master builder thomas j. bulger and his sons james m. and david t. bulger. most inland steamers of the pacific northwest were built with a flat bottom with as shallow a draft as possible so that they could move as far up the many shallow rivers to reach gold fields, farms or other areas where transportation was needed and roads or railroads were absent or inadequate. "rossland" was an exception to this rule. she was intended to operate as a "lake boat" where depth of water was normally not a problem, and therefore she had a rounder and deeper bottom than the normal sternwheeler design. her lake boat design would make "rossland" faster and more efficient on the deep water of the arrow lakes. her powerful engines were built by b.c. iron works, in vancouver