|
 Canadian
Nautical Milestones
by
Cap'n Jack Perdue
Most maritime
nations preserve boats that have played an important role in their
history. Canada is no exception, although our record is far from
perfect.
One the special Canadian craft to be preserved is
the St. Roch, a stubby little vessel of 80 tons, 104 feet long built
in Vancouver and powered by a single 50 horsepower diesel engine.
Being an RCMP Arctic patrol boat, her timbers were Douglas fir,
sheathed in Australian ironbank, one of the world’s toughest woods.
In 1941 the St. Roch, skippered by Sgt. Henry Larson,
began an attempt to be the first ship ever to sail through the Northwest
Passage.
This was ordered by the Canadian government in the
face of a new belligerence by the United States regarding the sovereignty
of the Canada Arctic islands.
After spending her first winter frozen in the ice,
the St. Roch finally broke free to complete the historic crossing
in 1942. Today the ship, with all its original equipment on board,
sits in a specially built museum on Vancouver’s waterfront.
Further north are the remaining memories of the
great fleet of sternwheelers that, beginning in 1898, carried hordes
of prospectors up the Yukon River from the Bering Sea to Dawson
City, heart of the gold rush, at the mouth of the Klondike River.
(Top)
By the turn of the century this remarkable armada
of more than 200 river steamers would bring in tens of thousands
of prospectors who were, in the words of Robert W. Service, “ clear
mad for that muck called gold.” They took out the lucky few who
had found a fortune ( and managed to keep it from Diamond-tooth
Gertie and Touch-the-Button Nell) and also the thousands of broke
and frost bitten miners who had not.
It was all over by 1900 and the gold fleet was suddenly
reluctant. Many sternwheelers moved downriver to Alaska where a
new gold rush was underway. Others rotted in the shallows along
the river or were broken up by the spring ice. But three were rescued,
repainted and fitted and today still attract tourists to the Yukon.
One is at Dawson City, another at Carcross and a third at Whitehorse.
They are the final reminders of that brief moment in history when
Dawson City was the largest and most modern community in Western
North America and the Yukon River paddle-steamers carried in their
holds more gold dust than any other fleet in history.
Probably Canada’s best-known historic craft was
the “Bluenose,” a two-masted schooners born when Senator W.H. Dennis,
who published the Halifax Herald, sponsored a series of international
schooner races and put up the trophy and prize money.
A young naval architect, William J. Roue was commissioned
by a group of Halifax yachtsmen and businessman to create a schooner
that would be beat the sleek American Gloucestermen and still be
competitive in the salt fishing trade. His success made Roue famous.
(Top)
The “Bluenose,” his creation, won every race against
the best and fastest schooners the Americans, and Canadians, could
produce. But she was much more than a racing yacht. She was designed
to fish over the Grand Banks and this she did better than any other
schooner for 20 years. Among her many records was the largest single
catch ever brought ashore at Lunenburg.
By 1938, the day of the Atlantic fishing schooners
were over, unable to compete with the steel-hulled, smoke-belching
draggers. They took out her bowsprit, cut down her masts and poured
concrete into her hold for an engine bed. In 1942 she was bought
by a trading to haul bananas and rum in the Caribbean. Then on a
black night in 1946 she struck a coral reef off Haiti. A storm blew
up the following night, before she could be refloated, and she her
back on the reef and sank.
Today if you’re visiting the Atlantic Provinces,
you can sail on a replica of the “Bluenose,” built carefully to
scale but unable to reproduce the liveliness and speed that made
her famous. The original “Bluenose” was never salvaged.
Guy Lombardo, a Canadian orchestra leader born in
London, Ontario was internationally known for his Royal Canadians
who ushered in the New Year on radio for more than a decade playing
“ Auld Lang Syne.” He was equally famous for driving raceboats.
In 1939, Lombardo visited the Toronto Exposition
that featured a three-point hydroplane and it changed his life.
He bought it, a 225 Ventnor, and began racing it in the prestigious
Gold Cup races on the Detroit River.
Following years of upgrading, in 1946 he purchased
the “Tempo VI,” powered with a one-of-kind 604-cubic inch V16 cobbled
together from four Indianapolis race car powerplants. With this
powerhouse he started winning races including the 1946 National
Sweepstakes, then topped the Gold Cup record by 10 mph, setting
a new mark of 113.031 mph. (Top)
In 1948, although he was still winning, he replaced
the engine with an even more powerful Allison V-1710 aircraft powerplant.
In the Gold Cup races that year, traveling at a close 100 mph, he
was involved in a spectacular crash. When he left the hospital,
he announced his boat-racing retirement. Although the “Temp VI”
was a write-off, there remains models, photos and footage of that
remarkable boat driven by an even more remarkable Canadian.
The new Canadian Canoe Museum is housed, perhaps
appropriately, in the building that was formerly the head quarters
of Outboard Marine Corporation of Canada in Peterborough, Ontario.
And a remarkably marine museum it has turned out to be.
Jacques Cartier, when he arrived in North America
in 1603, wrote in his journal following his introduction to the
canoe, “ they are liable to overturn if one knows not how to manage
them rightly.” As every Canadian knows he certainly got that part
right.
The canoe had been developing as the major form
of transportation in this country for a century. It had taken many
forms. The Algonkin canoe of the Ottawa watershed, roomy and easy
to handle, was the forerunner of today’s recreational craft. So
was the Malecite canoe of central News Brunswick with its roundly
bulging sides. The Montagnais of Labrador built a similar design
but with small pieces of bark because all the available trees were
stunted and slender.
The Ojibwa’s long nosed canoe was used in the Lake
Superior region while the James Bay Crees used a strange rocker
design with the canoe keel forming an arc up to a foot higher at
bow and stern amidships. The Iroquois were adept at building a disposable
canoe while the Beothuks of Newfoundland, influenced by the difficult
portages on that rocky island, developed a folding canoe.
All of these and more are on display at the splendid
Canadian Canoe Museum in Peterborough. Its well worth the visit.
( Note the gift shop at the museum is where my
Public Relations office used to be for the decades I worked for
OMC Canada.) (Top)
|
