Freshwater Heritage: A History of Sail on the Great Lakes, 1670-1918 represents the culmination of a lifelong passion for sailing and for the history of sail as it applies to Canada. Author/sailor/boat builder Don Bamford takes us deep into the psyche of sailing as it applies to historical events on the Great Lakes and to stories of the people and places there at the time. His extensive historical research takes us back to the time of European ...
The Frances Smith was not only the first steamboat to be built in Owen Sound, but also the largest vessel on Georgian Bay at that time. By far the most luxurious vessel to sail the Upper Great Lakes from a Canadian port, she was known as a «palace steamer.» In the mid-to-late-19th century, the Frances Smith set the standard for speed, spacious accommodation and quality service on Georgian Bay and Lake Superior. The story of the Frances Smith, f ...
Under Canadian Pacific’s red-and-white-checkered flag, the company’s founders, George Stephen and William C. Van Horne, created a rail-sea service from Liverpool to Hong Kong. Boasting sternwheelers, Great Lakes bulk carriers, ferries, and luxurious ocean-going liner leviathans, the Canadian Pacific shipping line sailed around the globe. In both world wars the entire fleet served gallantly as Allied troop carriers. After the Second World War, th ...
Rescue From Grampa Woo is an exciting tale of fear and heroism on Lake Superior. It tells of the rescue of two American men from a propellerless cruise ship as it drifts out to sea in hurricane-force winds. Three ships, two Canadian, one American, fight to save it. How successful were they? What kind of people would take these risks for others? What is it about Lake Superior that inspires such awe? Rescue From Grampa Woo is a mariner’s ...
For more than two hundred years, thousands of giant sailing ships traversed the Great Lakes carrying cargo and passengers. The memory of the romance and elegance of these beautiful ships has almost been forgotten in the search for greater efficiency and speed in our modern world. C.H.J. Snider (1879-1971) chronicled this era in his 1,303 «Schooner Days» columns for Toronto’s The Evening Telegram between 1931 and 1954. A great marine researche ...
In the 450 years since Jacques Cartier's arrival, Prince Edward Island's history has been tied to the sea and to ships. From the first explorers through immigrants, traders, sailors, and fishermen, thousands of seafaring people and their ships have come and gone – many lost to the relentless sea. Julie Watson has dug through the archives and unearthed harrowing accounts, from the expulsion of the Acadians to the amazing 1836 adventure ...
Steamboats carrying passengers from Hamilton to Montreal via the rapids of the St. Lawrence were a popular sight in the latter half of the nineteenth century. In 1855, the Kingston, an iron steamboat built for John Hamilton, appeared in the Great Lakes. When the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) toured British North America in 1860, the Kingston became his floating palace for much of his time between Quebec and Toronto. While many steamboats cl ...
In 1933, a young Canadian woman rejected the expectations of society and her upper-class family and became a crew member aboard one of the last great four-masted sailing vessels that still plied the ocean. It was not an easy task. Young Annette had to fight pressures from her family, rejection from schools of navigation, and doubts from ship owners. When she finally found a berth as an apprentice seaman, she faced hostility from officers and cr ...
