Canadian Fast Atlantic Service.
Ever since the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1885, the idea of instituting a fast service between Great Britain and the St. Lawrence has been regarded with yearly increasing favour. Now it is regarded as a necessary link in the chain that binds the colony to the Mother Land, and indispensable if this route is to become Britain’s highway to the East.
As early as 1887 the Canadian Government advertised for tenders for a line of Atlantic mail steamers to have an average speed of 20 knots an hour, coupled with the condition that they should touch at some French port. The Allans, who at that time deemed a 20-knot service unsuited to the St. Lawrence route, offered to supply a weekly service with a guaranteed average speed of 17 knots, for an annual subsidy of $500,000 on a ten years’ contract. That offer was declined. About the same time the English firm of Anderson, Anderson & Co. offered to provide a line of vessels “capable of running 20 knots” for the same subsidy. This dubious offer was accepted provisionally by the Canadian Government, but it was eventually fallen from. Two years later another abortive attempt was made, when the Government of the day voted $750,000 as an annual subsidy for a 20-knot service; but nothing resulted. In 1894 Mr. James Huddart, of Sydney, N. S. W. (the contractor for the Vancouver-Australian Line of steamers), entered into an agreement with the Dominion Government for a weekly 20-knot service for said amount of $750,000 per annum. For reasons that need not be explained, this proposal also fell through. In 1896 the Allans were said to have tendered for a 20-knot service on the basis of a subsidy of $1,125,000, but the offer was declined owing to some informalities.
In view of so many failures it is scarcely safe to affirm that the fast service is now assured. In May, 1897, however, it was officially announced by the Canadian Government that a contract had been entered into, with the approval of the British Government, whereby Messrs. Peterson, Tate & Co., of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, agreed to furnish a weekly service with a guaranteed speed of at least 500 knots a day. The contractors are to provide four steamers of not less than 520 feet in length, with a draft of water not exceeding 25 feet 6 inches. The ships are to be not less than 10,000 tons register, fitted to carry from 1,500 to 2,000 tons of cargo, with suitable cold storage accommodation for at least 500 tons. They are to be equal in all respects to the best Atlantic steamships afloat, such as the Campania and Lucania, with accommodation for not less than 300 first-class, 200 second-class and 800 steerage passengers. The annual subsidy is to be $750,000, whereof the Canadian Government is to pay $500,000 and the British Government $250,000. The steamers are not to call at any foreign port, and the company is forbidden to accept a subsidy from any foreign country. The mails are to be carried free. The termini of the line will be Liverpool and Quebec during summer, the ships proceeding to Montreal if and when the navigation permits. In winter the Canadian terminus will be Halifax or St. John, N. B., at the option of the contractors, who are to provide a 22-knot tender of the torpedo type to meet each steamer on her approach to the Canadian coast when required, and pilot her to her destination. The contractors must deposit £10,000 in cash, and a guarantee of £10,000 additional, with the Minister of Finance of Canada as security that the contract will be faithfully carried into effect.
Twelve months having passed since the signing of the contract, without any substantial progress having been made towards its fulfilment, a new agreement was entered into in April last whereby the Government granted Messrs. Peterson and Tate an extension of time, and introduced several important changes into the contract. Under the new arrangement the contractors were required to have a steamship company incorporated by May 30th, 1898, with a substantial capital of $6,250,000, to have contracts signed with ship-builders at that date for four steamships, and to have two of them actually under construction. The 1st of May, 1900, was named as the time when the four steamers are to be ready to go on the route and commence a regular weekly service. The preliminary conditions attached to the contract appear to have been complied with, and a company has been incorporated under the name of the “Canadian Royal Mail Steamship Company, Limited;” but grave fears are entertained that the necessary funds may not be forthcoming, and that the long-expected fast service may be indefinitely delayed.
Sir Sandford Fleming, who has made a study of this subject, and published his opinions respecting it in a series of pamphlets, is not sanguine as to the success of the undertaking. “The conditions imposed by nature,” he says, “are unfavourable for rapid transit by the St. Lawrence route, and any attempts to establish on this route a line of fast transatlantic steamships to rival those running to and from New York would result in disappointment.” In the event of such a service being instituted, Sir Sandford assumes that it would be almost exclusively for the use of passengers, and suggests that the route should be from Loch Ryan, on the Wigtonshire coast of Scotland, to North Sydney, in Cape Breton. The distance between these points being only 2,160 knots, the voyage might be made in 4½ days, while 30 hours more would land mails and passengers in Montreal by railway. In this way the average time from London to Montreal would be reduced to 6 days and 6 hours—36 hours less than the time usually occupied between Montreal and London via New York and Queenstown.
“In connection with the ocean service there might also be a line of fast light-draught steamers to run to and from Montreal to Sydney and the Gulf ports. In this way the people of the Maritime Provinces, including Newfoundland, would share in the benefits to be derived from the fast ocean service equally with those of Quebec and Ontario.” Sir Sandford’s idea is to have the fastest ocean ship on the shortest ocean passage, and by all means to avoid the Straits of Belle Isle, “the saving of a few hours being insufficient to counterpoise the tremendous risks to which fast passenger steamships, in navigating the Belle Isle route, would so seriously and frequently be exposed.” It is claimed that if this plan were adopted three ocean steamers would suffice instead of four. Reference to the accompanying sketch-map, showing the relative positions of Sydney, Newfoundland, and the Straits of Belle Isle, with the existing lines of railway, will help to make Sir Sandford’s proposal clear.
Among other proposals, an English syndicate recently offered to furnish a 24-knot service between Milford-Haven, on the coast of Wales, and a port in Nova Scotia, representing to the British Government that they would be able to carry troops across the Atlantic in four days, and land them in Victoria in six days more. But the 24-knot steamship has not yet been launched.
MAP OF THE GULF OF ST. LAWRENCE AND NORTH ATLANTIC PORTS.
(Kindly furnished by Sir Sandford Fleming.)
Sir Sandford Fleming, K. C. M. G., LL. D., C. E., is one of Canada’s most eminent civil engineers. He was born at Kirkcaldy, Fifeshire, Scotland, January 7th, 1827, came to Canada at the age of eighteen, and has ever since been identified with the progress and development of the country. He was on the engineering staff of the Northern Railway from 1852 to 1863, and for the latter half of that time was chief engineer of the work. He was chief engineer of the Intercolonial Railway, and carried it through to a successful completion in 1876. In 1871 he was appointed engineer-in-chief of the Canadian Pacific Railway; he retired from that position in 1880 and was subsequently elected a director of the company. He received the freedom of the Royal Burgh of Kirkcaldy and the degree of LL. D. from the University of St. Andrews in 1884: was appointed to represent Canada at the International Prime Meridian Conference in Washington in 1884: at the Colonial Conference, London, in 1887, at the Colonial Conference in Ottawa, in 1894, and at the Imperial Cable Conference in London, in 1896. Sir Sandford has been Chancellor of Queen’s University at Kingston since 1880. He is the author of numerous scientific and other publications, is an active member of the Royal Colonial Institute of London, and on the occasion of Her Majesty’s Diamond Jubilee was accorded the honour of knighthood.
The conflicting rumours, which for many months have been in circulation as to the inability of Messrs. Peterson, Tate & Company to fulfil the terms of their agreement, have finally been set at rest by the cancelling of the contract, and the Canadian Government calling for tenders for a weekly steamship service for carrying Her Majesty’s mails for a period of two years from the 1st of May, 1899, from Montreal and Quebec to Liverpool, during the summer months, and from St. John, N. B., and Halifax in winter. The time occupied in making the voyage from Rimouski to Moville and vice versa, is not to exceed an average of seven days. This is clearly a temporary arrangement and not an implied abandonment of a faster service than already exists. The opinion, however, in business circles seems to be gaining ground that something much less costly than a twenty-knot service might for some years to come meet the requirements of the country.
CHAPTER VIII.
STEAM ON THE GREAT LAKES.
The History of Steam Navigation on the Great Lakes—The Construction of the St. Lawrence, the Welland, and the Rideau Canals—The Port of Montreal.
THE waterways of Canada available for steam navigation are on a magnificent scale. The main system extends from the mouth of the St. Lawrence at Belle Isle to Fort William and the head of Lake Superior—a distance of nearly 2,384 miles, and rendered navigable without interruption by a series of ship canals. Proceeding four hundred miles farther west, another long stretch of inland navigation begins with Lake Winnipeg, 240 miles long, into which, at its northern extremity, flows the mighty Saskatchewan, navigable for steamers one thousand miles! Not to mention smaller streams, the rivers St. John and Miramichi, in the Province of New Brunswick, afford 300 miles of navigable water and float a large amount of shipping. Ships of the largest size can ascend the Saguenay seventy-five miles. The Ottawa in its several reaches is navigable by steam for three or four hundred miles. Steamers ply on the Assiniboine, 250 or 300 miles westward from Winnipeg. The Mackenzie River is navigable for a thousand miles. The Fraser, the Thompson, and the Columbia rivers in British Columbia contribute largely to the steam tonnage of the Dominion. The Great Lakes,[38] commonly so called, are in reality great inland fresh water seas, often swept by gales of wind and combing billows, and sometimes, alas, strewed with wrecks. They have their breakwaters, lighthouses and steam fog-signals as fully equipped as similar oceanic structures and appliances. The Lake of the Woods and Lake Manitoba are each 100 miles long.
As early as the year 1641 a few Jesuit missionaries and fur-traders had reached the rock-bound shores of Lake Superior in their canoes, but it is not until some years later that history makes us acquainted with the first sailing vessels that appeared on the lakes. One of the earliest of these was a schooner of ten tons, built near where Kingston now is by the enterprising French adventurer, La Salle, who had been appointed Governor of Fort Frontenac, and had a roving commission to explore the western wilds of North America. Accompanied by the famous Recollet Father, Hennepin, and some thirty others, La Salle set sail on the 10th of November, 1678, for the head of Lake Ontario. Finding his further passage barred by the Falls of Niagara, he wintered in that neighbourhood and had another vessel built at Cayuga Creek, a few miles above the Falls. This vessel, which he named the Griffin, of about sixty tons burthen, was launched in May, 1679, and was probably the first to navigate the upper lakes. On the 7th of August the Griffin, equipped with seven guns and a diversity of small arms and freighted with a load of goods, sailed away for Detroit and parts unknown. The Detroit River was reached in a few days, and Green Bay—at the head of Lake Huron—some time in September, when she was loaded with furs and despatched on her return voyage to Niagara, which, however, she never reached, the vessel and cargo having been totally lost on the way. For many years after the loss of the Griffin the navigation of the lakes seems to have been chiefly confined to bateaux, and up to 1756 the construction and use of sailing vessels was largely, if not entirely, confined to Lake Ontario. The first American vessel built on Lake Erie was the schooner Washington, built near Erie, Pa., in 1797. After plying on Lake Erie one season, she was sold to a Canadian and carried on wheels around the Falls to Lake Ontario, where she sailed from Queenston for Kingston in 1798 as a British vessel, under the name of Lady Washington. In 1816 the whole sailing tonnage on Lake Erie was only 2,067 tons. In 1818 the fleet on Lake Ontario numbered about sixty vessels.
It is not necessary to enlarge on the growth and decadence of sailing vessels on the Great Lakes. Suffice it to say that the sailing vessel had reached its palmiest days between the years 1845 and 1862. In the latter year the gross tonnage of the lakes had risen to 383,309 tons, valued at $11,865,550, and was divided as follows: 320 steamers, aggregating 125,620 tons; and 1,152 sailing vessels, aggregating 257,689 tons. Side-wheel steamers numbered 117, and propellers, 203. In 1896 the entire number of sailing vessels on the Northern Lakes (including Lake Champlain) was 1,044, and of steam vessels, 1,792. Many in both of these classes were small vessels, including yachts and barges: the number actually engaged in the transportation business would be about 774 sailing vessels and 1,031 steamers over fifty tons burthen—a large proportion of the steamers being from 1,500 to 2,500 tons burthen.[39]
Coming back now to the beginning of steam navigation on the Great Lakes, we find that the first Canadian steamer to navigate any of these waters was the Frontenac, built at Finkle’s Point, eighteen miles above Kingston, by Teabout & Chapman, of Sackett’s Harbour, for a company of shareholders belonging to Kingston, Niagara, Queenston, York and Prescott. The Frontenac was launched on September 7th, 1816. Her length over all was 170 feet, and her registered tonnage, 700 tons. She cost nearly £20,000 currency. The engines were made by Watt & Boulton, of Birmingham, England, and cost about £7,000. The Frontenac was said to be the best piece of naval architecture then in America, and her departure on her first voyage was considered a great event—“she moved off from her berth with majestic grandeur, the admiration of a great number of spectators.” Her maiden trip for the head of the lake was commenced on June 5th, 1817. Her regular route was from Prescott to York (Toronto) and back, once a week. She was commanded as long as she was afloat by Captain James Mackenzie, a gallant sailor who had previously served in the Royal navy. The Frontenac eventually became the property of the Messrs. Hamilton, of Queenston. She was maliciously set on fire by some miscreants while lying at her wharf at Niagara in 1827, and was totally destroyed.
“QUEEN CHARLOTTE.”
Second steamer on Lake Ontario, 1818.
About the same time the Americans had built a steamboat at Sackett’s Harbour, N. Y., named the Ontario, a vessel 110 feet long, 24 feet wide, and 8½ feet in depth, measuring 240 tons. The Ontario made her first trip in April, 1817, thus establishing her claim of precedence in sailing on the lakes. She was built under a grant from the heirs of Robert Fulton. On her first trip she encountered considerable sea, which lifted the paddle-wheels, throwing the shaft from its bearings and destroying the paddle-boxes. This defect in her construction having been remedied, she was afterwards successful, it is said, but her career is not recorded.[40] The Americans built another steamer at Sackett’s Harbour in 1818, the Sophia, of 70 tons, to run as a packet between that port and Kingston. In that year also the Canadians built their second lake steamer, the Queen Charlotte. She was built at the same place as the Frontenac, and largely from material which had not been used in the construction of that vessel. She was launched on the 22nd of April, 1818, and was soon ready to take her place as the pioneer steamer on the Bay of Quinte.[41] The Queen Charlotte was a much smaller boat than the Frontenac. Her machinery was made by the brothers Ward, of Montreal, and she seems to have plied very successfully for twenty years from Prescott to the “Carrying Place” at the head of the Bay of Quinte, where passengers took stage to Cobourg and thence proceeded to York by steamer. She was commanded at first by old Captain Richardson, then for a short time by young Captain Mosier, and afterwards, to the end of her career, by Captain Gildersleeve, of Kingston. She was finally broken up in Cataraqui Bay; but in the meantime upwards of thirty steamers were plying on Lake Ontario and the Upper St. Lawrence, to some of which particular reference will be made later on.
“WALK-IN-THE-WATER.”
First steamer on Lake Erie, 1818.
THE “VANDALIA.”
From Scriber’s Magazine for March, 1890.
The first steamer on Lake Erie was the Walk-in-the-Water, built at Black Rock, near Buffalo, by one Noah Brown, and launched May 28th, 1818. She was schooner-rigged, 135 feet in length, 32 feet beam and 13 feet 3 inches deep: her tonnage was 38360⁄95 tons. Her machinery was brought from Albany, a distance of three hundred miles, in wagons drawn by five to eight horses each. She left Black Rock on her first voyage August 25th, and reached Detroit, 290 miles, in 44 hours 10 minutes. “While she could navigate down stream, her power was not sufficient to make headway against the strong current of the Niagara River. Resort was therefore made to what was known in the early days as a “horned breeze.” The Walk-in the-Water was regularly towed up the Niagara River by a number of yokes of oxen, but once above the swift current she went very well.” She made regular trips between Black Rock and Detroit, occasionally going as far as Mackinac and Green Bay on Lake Huron, until November, 1821, when she was driven ashore near Buffalo in a gale of wind and became a total wreck. Her engines, however, were recovered and put in a new boat named the Superior, in 1822. Soon after this the first high-pressure steamer on the lakes was built at Buffalo. She was named the Pioneer. In 1841 the first lake propeller was launched at Oswego. This was the Vandalia, of 160 tons, said to be the first freight boat in America to make use of Ericsson’s screw propeller. She made her first trip in November, 1841, and proved entirely successful. In the spring of 1842 she passed through the Welland Canal, and was visited by large numbers of people in Buffalo, who were curious to see this new departure in steam navigation, and the result was that two new propellers were built in that year at Buffalo, the Sampson and the Hercules.
Soon after the introduction of steamboats, and because of them, when as yet railroads were not in this part of the world, Lake Erie became the great highway of travel to the western States, and it was not long until magnificent upper cabin steamers, carrying from 1,000 to 1,500 passengers, were plying between Buffalo and Chicago. The writer well remembers making the voyage in one of these steamers late in the autumn of 1844, and that, owing to the tempestuous state of the weather, we had to tie up most every night, so that the voyage lasted nearly a whole week. The crowd of passengers was great, but it was a good-natured crowd, bent on having a “good time.” Dancing was kept up in the main saloon every evening till midnight, after which many of us were glad to get a shake-down on the cabin floor.
THE “PRINCETON.”
First propeller on the lakes that had an upper cabin—one of a fleet of fourteen passenger steamers plying between Buffalo and Chicago in 1845—had twin screws, and a speed of eleven miles an hour.
The year 1836 marks an important era in the navigation of the Great Lakes, for in that year the first cargo of grain from Lake Michigan arrived at Buffalo, brought by the brig John Kenzie from Grand River. It consisted of three thousand bushels of wheat. Previous to that date the commerce of the lakes had been all westward, and, curiously enough, the cargoes carried west consisted for the most part of flour, grain and other supplies for the new western settlements. In 1840 a regular movement of grain from west to east had been established.
In the early years of the grain trade the loading and unloading of vessels was a very slow and irksome business. As much as two or three days might be required to unload a cargo of 5,000 bushels. In the winter of 1842-43 the first grain elevator was built at Buffalo, and a new system of handling grain introduced which was to prove of incalculable benefit to the trade. The schooner Philadelphia, of 123 tons, was the first to be unloaded by the elevator.
The Canadian steam traffic on Lake Erie commenced with the steamers Chippewa and Emerald, plying between Chippewa and Buffalo; the Kent, which foundered in 1845; the Ploughboy, owned by a company in Chatham, and the Clinton, owned by Robert Hamilton, of Queenston. A much larger Canadian steam traffic developed on Lake Huron. One of the earliest passenger steamers on the Georgian Bay was the Gore, of 200 tons, built at Niagara in 1838, and called after the Lieutenant-Governor of that name. That boat, which had plied for some years between Niagara and Toronto, was placed on the route between Sturgeon Bay and Sault Ste. Marie. On Lake Huron proper, the Bruce Mines was probably the earliest Canadian steamer. She was employed in carrying copper ore from the Bruce mines to Montreal, and was wrecked in 1854. Shortly after, on the completion of the Northern Railway, in 1854, the company, with a view to developing their interests, entered into a contract with an American line of steamers to run from Collingwood to Lake Michigan ports tri-weekly and once a week to Green Bay. In 1862 six large propellers were put on the route. Later, a line of first-class passenger steamers began to ply twice a week from Collingwood and Owen Sound to Duluth at the head of Lake Superior. Among the steamers of that line, which became very popular, were the Chicora, Francis Smith, Cumberland, and Algoma. These in turn were superseded by the magnificent steamers of the Canadian Pacific and other lines elsewhere referred to.
THE “EMPIRE.”
Built at Cleveland in 1844; a notable steamer in her day, being the largest, the fastest, and the most handsomely fitted-up vessel on the Upper Lakes at that time; ran many years between Buffalo and Chicago.
The commerce of Lake Superior developed long after that of the lower lakes had been established. In the earliest records of the navigation of this lake, a brigantine named the Recovery, of about 150 tons, owned by the North-West Fur Company, is mentioned as being one of the first to sail on Lake Superior, about the year 1800. It is said that during the war of 1812, fearing that she might be seized by the Americans, her spars were taken out and her hull was covered up by branches and brushwood in a sequestered bay till peace was proclaimed. She was then taken from her hiding-place and resumed her beat on the lake until about 1830, when she was run over the Sault Ste. Marie rapids and placed in the lumber trade on Lake Erie, under the command of Captain John Fallows, of Fort Erie, Canada West. Another vessel, the Mink, is mentioned as having been brought down the rapids at an earlier period. In 1835 the John Jacob Astor, accounted a large vessel in her time, was built on Lake Superior for the American Fur Company, and placed in command of Captain Charles C. Stanard, who sailed her until 1842, when Captain J. B. Angus became master and remained in charge of her until she was wrecked at Copper Harbour in September, 1844. Passing by a number of other sailing vessels we come now to the introduction of steam on Lake Superior, and this, according to the statement of an old resident at Fort William, is how it began.
The twin-screw propeller Independence, Captain A. J. Averill, of Chicago, was the first steamer seen on Lake Superior. This vessel, rigged as a fore-and-aft schooner, was about 260 tons burthen, and was hauled over the Sault Ste. Marie rapids in 1844. Her route of sailing was on the south shore of the lake. Another propeller, the Julia Palmer, was in like manner dragged up the Ste. Marie rapids in 1846, and was the first steamer to sail on the north shore. At intervals, prior to the opening of the ship canal, several other steamers were taken up the rapids, among which were the propellers Manhattan, Monticello, and Peninsular, and the side-wheel steamers Baltimore and Sam Ward.
Previous to the completion of the Welland Canal the transportation of freight over the portage from Queenston to Chippewa had come to be quite a large business, giving employment to many “teamsters,” for the entire traffic between Lake Erie and Ontario at this point was by means of the old-fashioned lumber-wagon. At the Sault Ste. Marie portage, Mr. Keep informs us that “one old grey horse and cart” did the business for a time, but as the volume of trade increased two-horse wagons were employed until 1850, when a light tram-road was built by the Chippewa Portage Company, operated by horses, which with a capacity for moving three or four hundred tons of freight in twenty-four hours, answered the purpose up to the time of the opening of the canal in 1855.