James Cowie (d. 1898)
	
Jim Cowie, steward’s help on the Bennett Lake and Klondyke Navigation Co (BL&KN) sternwheeler //Ora,// was shot and killed by T.C. Burnett, the purser from the BL&KN sternwheeler //Flora.// Cowie claimed to be a prize fighter and beat up Burnett. He starved the staff at $2.50 a meal and was privately selling the crew’s pies to the passengers for a dollar each. Burnett was a good man, well known and respected. He told the manager that he wanted to leave the //Ora// but would not say why at the time. The manager asked him, as a favour, to act on the //Flora// until he could get another man, and gave him a gun as part of the insurance agreement.((Allan Safarik ed., //The Olive Diary.// Surry: Timberline Books, 1998: 111-17, 125-27.))

Burnett went aboard the //Ora// to settle up with the purser and Cowie came up and hit him, but Burnett did not retaliate. Cowie attacked him again when Cowie went back to get the manifests left on the desk, Burnett told him to stop or he would shoot. Burnet was badly beaten, and he shot Cowie in the stomach. The crew did not help prevent the fight. They all thought Burnett had quit and informed on them to the manager, but the passengers had told the manager that the crew were all thieves. The manager checked and found thousands of dollars of stock missing.((Allan Safarik ed., //The Olive Diary.// Surry: Timberline Books, 1998: 111-17, 125-27.)) 

Burnett was disarmed by W.D. Oregel and a storekeeper with the shipping line named Wallace, and then was arrested by Constable Frans Lindblad. Constable Edward Dixon arrived and held the prisoner until Sergeant Henry Joyce arrived. The purser of the //Ora,// H. Freese, had gone to the detachment to ask for a doctor. James Cowie died, and Burnett was taken to the Tagish detachment where he was confined in a tent with two men. He was eventually transferred to Dawson and released in 1899, possibly due to a lack of evidence and witnesses.((Jim Wallace, //Forty Mile to Bonanza: The North-West Mounted Police in the Klondike Gold Rush.// Calgary: Bunker to Bunker Publishing. 2000: 113-114.))