Steam Navigation and Its Relation to the Commerce of Canada and the United States

by James Croil

Canadian Commerce on the Great Lakes.

Notwithstanding the large amount of money expended by the Canadian Government upon its unrivalled St. Lawrence canals and the deepening of its waterways, the volume of western traffic that comes this way is as yet disappointingly small. The great bulk of the trade in western produce, Canadian and American, finds its way to the seaboard in American vessels by way of Buffalo, Oswego and Ogdensburg to New York and Boston. What effect the deepening of the canals to fourteen feet will have on this deviation from the “natural outlet” remains to be seen.

From a statement kindly furnished by Mr. T. F. Taylor, Marine Inspector at Kingston, it appears that the number of companies in Canada having steamers and other craft engaged in the commerce of the Great Lakes is twenty-four. Three of these go no farther than the head of Lake Ontario, three extend their operations to Lake Erie, five to Lake Huron, and thirteen to Lake Superior. Five steamers are employed on Lake Erie, thirteen on Lake Huron, twenty-six navigate the waters of Lake Superior. About one-half of these steamers are first-class steel freight and passenger vessels of from 1,200 to 2,600 tons each. A few of them pass through the Welland Canal and have their cargoes transhipped into barges at Kingston or Prescott. Others connect with lines of railway at Sault Ste. Marie, Owen Sound, Collingwood, Windsor and Sarnia. Occasionally one or two of the smaller ones run through to Montreal. Besides the steamers, there are employed in the lakes’ grain trade twenty-one lake barges, each of 50,000 bushels capacity, and fourteen tug steamers. There is also a fleet of about sixty-two sailing vessels trading between the Upper Lakes and Kingston, and some sixty or seventy barges employed in transporting grain from that port to Montreal.

C. P. R. SS. “ALBERTA,” 1883.

On the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway the company formed a line of freight and passenger steamers of their own, consisting of the Algoma, the Alberta and the Athabasca. The Algoma had sailed the lakes previous to this under different names. The other two are fine steel ships, built by Aitken & Co. of Glasgow, in 1883. They are each 270 feet long and 2,300 tons burthen, fitted with all modern improvements in their machinery and with excellent accommodation for a large number of passengers. They commenced their work in 1884 and have been very successful and popular. The Algoma was unfortunately wrecked off Isle Royale in Lake Superior in November, 1885, during a fearful snow-storm that swept over the lake, when many lives were lost. She was replaced by the Manitoba, a very fine vessel built of steel at Owen Sound by the Polson Ship-building Company. The Manitoba is the largest Canadian steamer on the lakes, being 300 feet long and 2,600 tons burthen. By means of these steamers a regular and most satisfactory summer service is maintained once a week from Windsor and Sarnia, and twice a week from Owen Sound and Sault Ste. Marie to Fort William. Their capacity for the transportation of grain is about 400,000 bushels a month.

The Montreal Transportation Company, founded in 1868, is the oldest of the existing forwarding companies, and does the largest amount of business. Their fleet consists at present of three steamers, six tug-boats, six lake barges and thirty-two river barges. Two of the steamers, the Bannockburn and the Rosemount, are first-class steel ships, built at Newcastle-on-Tyne, about 250 feet in length, 40 feet beam, with a carrying capacity of 75,000 bushels of wheat. The lake barges play an important part as “consorts” to the steamers. They resemble in appearance so many large dismasted schooners, and serve their purpose economically and well so long as they keep in tow, but when they break loose, as they occasionally do when overtaken by a gale of wind, they become unmanageable and are apt to come to grief. This company with its present equipment handles about 250,000 bushels of grain per month.

The North-West Transportation Company, dating from 1871, and otherwise known as the “Beatty Line,” has two fine passenger and freight steamers, the Monarch and the United Empire, of 1,600 tons and 1,400 tons respectively, forming a weekly line from Windsor and Sarnia to Fort William and Duluth, in connection with the Grand Trunk Railway; they forward about 200,000 bushels of grain per month.

The Hagarty and Crangle Line, running between ports at the head of lakes Superior and Michigan to ports on the River St. Lawrence, has two large steel steamers, the Algonquin and the Rosedale, on the Upper Lakes, and the steamer Persia which plies between the head of Lake Ontario and Montreal. Hamilton has three “Merchants Lines” in the Upper Lakes’ shipping business—Mackay’s, Fairgreaves’, and Thomas Myles & Sons, owning in addition to other lake craft such fine steel and composite steamers as the Sir L. Tilley, Lake Michigan, Arabian and the Myles.

The Calvin Company’s Line, of Garden Island, Kingston, has four steamers, four lake barges, and four tug steamers running between Lake Superior ports, Kingston and Montreal. The Collins Bay Rafting Company has on the same route three steamers, three lake barges, and two tug steamers. The Jacques & Co.’s Line has two steamers running from the head of Lake Erie and one from the head of Lake Ontario to Montreal.

The Great Northern Transit Company, with headquarters at Collingwood, has four freight and passenger steamers—the Majestic, Pacific, Atlantic, and Northern Belle—keeping up a well-appointed service twice a week from Collingwood to Sault Ste. Marie, and having connection with the Northern Railway to Toronto. The Majestic, built at Collingwood, is a steel screw steamer, 230 feet long, 36 feet wide, 1,600 tons register, and cost $125,000. She has compound condensing engines of 1,200 horse-power, and is fitted up internally with great elegance. The North Shore Navigation Company has five excellent steamers plying on the Georgian Bay and northern shores of Lake Huron from Collingwood and Owen Sound to Sault Ste. Marie and Mackinac Island, where connections are made with American lines of steamers to Chicago and other ports on Lake Michigan. The steamers are the City of Collingwood, 1,400 tons; City of Midland, 1,300 tons; City of Toronto, 800 tons; City of Parry Sound and City of London, each 600 tons.

Reference will be made hereafter to steamers plying on Lake Ontario and the River St. Lawrence.