The Stanley, which succeeded the Northern Light, was built in 1888 at Govan on the Clyde, after the model of similar ice-steamers in Norway and Sweden. She has done excellent service, and her powers of breaking ice and separating large floes must be seen to be understood or believed. That she has not been able to keep up continuous communication does not surprise those who know what the Gulf is at some seasons of the year. She has made passages when it seemed futile to expect it; and while she has been imprisoned in the ice for as much as three weeks at a time, she has made the voyage from Pictou to Georgetown—40 miles—in two hours and a half. During the season 1894-95 the Stanley carried 1,600 passengers. Her earnings were $9,266.92; the cost of her repairs and maintenance was $28,179.32.
“STANLEY,” WINTER FERRY-BOAT TO PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND, 1881.
The Stanley is built throughout of Siemens-Martin steel. Her dimensions are: length, 207 feet; breadth, 32 feet; depth, 20 feet 3 inches. She is a screw boat of 914 tons gross, and 300 horse-power, and attains a speed of nearly 15 knots in clear water. She is so constructed that she runs up on heavy ice, breaking it with her sheer weight. At times she has passed through what is called “shoved ice,” eight feet in thickness. She has good state room accommodation for about fifty cabin passengers, and is in every way a very efficient, powerful and staunch boat.
In the spring and fall of the year the Stanley is employed in the Coast Buoy service; in summer she takes her place in the Fisheries’ Protection fleet, and proves herself a smart and formidable cruiser and a terror to evil-doers. She commences the winter mail service from Charlottetown to Pictou about the first of December, and about Christmas, when the Charlottetown harbour is frozen over, she takes up the route from Pictou to Georgetown, at the eastern end of Prince Edward Island. When she is imprisoned in the ice, as frequently happens, the mails and passengers are taken by the open boats in manner above described. From February 8th to April 12th, 1895, when the Stanley was laid up for repairs, the ice-boat service carried 3,497 mail bags, 458 pounds of baggage, 76 pounds of express goods, 9 passengers, and 77 “strap-passengers.”
Dominion Steamers.
In connection with the Lighthouse and Buoy service and the Fisheries’ Protection the Canadian Government employs fourteen steamers and three sailing vessels. The aggregate gross tonnage of the steamers is 5,589 tons. Of these the Stanley is the largest, after which come the Newfield, 785 tons; the Aberdeen, 674 tons; the Acadia, 526 tons—all of Halifax; the Lansdowne, 680 tons, of St. John, N.B.; the Quadra, 573 tons, of Victoria, B.C.; La Canadienne, 372 tons, of Quebec, etc., etc.
Newfoundland.[71]
The history of steam navigation in this province begins with the year 1840, when Her Majesty’s ship Spitfire—a paddle steamer—entered the harbour of St. John’s with a detachment of soldiers to strengthen the garrison. In 1842 the steamship John McAdam visited St. John’s, and a number of ladies and gentlemen made excursions in her to Conception and Trinity bays, startling the natives by the sight of a vessel walking the waters without the aid of sails or oars. In 1844 the Government arranged with the owners of the steamship North American to carry mails and passengers regularly between St. John’s and Halifax. When this vessel first entered the harbour, with her huge walking-beam and a figurehead of an Indian, painted white, half of the population of the city crowded the wharves to see her. She had made the run from Halifax in sixty hours. Soon after this a contract was made with the Cunard Company for a mail service between St. John’s and Halifax, fortnightly in summer and monthly during the winter months. In 1873 direct steam communication with England and America was established by arrangement with the Allan Line for the conveyance of mails, passengers and goods, fortnightly during nine months of the year and monthly during the remaining months, though at a later date fortnightly trips were made all the year round.