The SS Keewatin made her final trip across Lake Ontario, with a pit stop in Toronto, and has arrived safely at the Great Lakes Museum in Kingston.
She made the 30-hour trip from the Heddle Shipyards in Hamilton, leaving before dawn on Oct. 25, and docking in Kingston midday on Oct. 26. Many marine history buffs were watching livestreams and photographers used drones to capture the voyage.
The Keewatin was towed by tugboat Molly M1 with tug Vigilant 1 on brake for the long-anticipated trip.
"It took both tugs to get her into the dry dock," said Doug Cowie, manager of the Great Lakes Museum.
"It's excellent news to finally get it here in our (wet) dry dock safe and secure. It's been quite an overwhelming period of time."
Cowie had been working since 2019 to secure the ship from former owners Skyline Investments, which had it docked in Port McNicoll since June 2012. Skyline donated the ship the museum.
"It's been a long road. We had to apply to get historic designation for the ship. That took a year itself. Then we got a ruling from Canadian Heritage to make it designated as Canadian cultural property," said Cowie.
Since leaving Port NcNicoll on April 24, the ship underwent almost six months of repairs at the shipyard. Work included sandblasting the funnel and two masts. All the wood was removed from the promenade deck as much of it was rotting, said Cowie. They also cleaned and painted the sub-deck. It will be left like that for a while.
"We will have that deck rebuilt in the next few years," Cowie said.
There are advantages to having the ship in Kingston, said Cowie.
For one it's in a secure dock, with structure on both sides so it won't be affected by wave action. It floats in the middle with lines all around. Called a dry dock, even though there is water in it, it's a national historical site as it was built in 1892, he explained.
The Keewatin is an Edwardian-era (Titanic-era) steamliner formerly owned by CP Rail and built in 1907 by Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering of Glasgow, Scotland.
"So we have a designated historic ship in a designated historic dry dock. They are both of the same vintage and era and the engineering was from the same period. They have a lot in common," Cowie said.
Secondly, "it's a transformation change for the museum as it will be a major attraction for the museum," said Cowie.
Kingston boasts dozens of museums and historic sites such as Fort Henry as well as Queen's University, the Royal Military College and St. Lawrence College. It's also situated on a busy traffic corridor between Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto.
"We are a destination onto ourselves, so we think it will be a major attraction to the city," said Cowie.
Cowie wants to do a shout-out to the Friends of Keewatin, who looked after the Keewatin for 11 years.
"They did a superb job of maintaining the ship, taking care of it. We're happy to receive it after they've taken such good care of it. They did a remarkable job."
The Friends of the Keewatin donated thousands of hours of work to keep the ship in the best state of repair as possible and the ship was open for tours every summer. Volunteers also amassed thousands of artifacts and staged many areas of the ship while it was in Port McNicoll.
"They did a remarkable job of that, too," Cowie said.
The Great Lakes Museum is now signing up volunteers to work on the ship.
"We are hoping to assemble a group of volunteers as committed as the ones up in Port McNicoll."
The Keewatin travelled between Port Arthur/Fort William on Lake Superior and Port McNicoll on Georgian Bay. She carried passengers between these ports for the Canadian Pacific Railway’s Great Lakes Steamship Service between 1907 and 1965.
When decommissioned in the mid 1960s, the ship went to a private museum in Michigan.
Thanks to the efforts of Eric Conroy to save the ship from being scrapped, and being purchased by Skyline, the ship was pulled from the bottom of the lakebed in Michigan and towed to Port McNicoll at cost of more than $2 million.
Years later, when Skyline looked to divest itself of the ship, a petition was created that accumulated 15,000 signatures in an effort to keep it in Port McNicoll. That was ultimately unsuccessful.
The Great Lakes Museum is located at 55 Ontario St., in Kingston. Tours will begin in May 2024. For more information, visit the museum website at marmuseum.ca.
For more images see the Great Lakes Museum Facebook page. Pictures and videos of the ship are searchable on social media using #KeewatinWatch and/or tagging the museum, @marinemuseumkingston.
YouTube video of Keewatin in Hamilton: www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNyiKOE390s&t=31s.
