Port McNicoll

 

From 1896 to 1911 Canada had the world's fastest growing economy. In 1907, just 40 years after Confederation, the Keewatin and her sister ship the Assiniboia were built in Govan, Scotland. A year later they joined the Manitoba, Alberta and Athabasca to form a formidable CPR fleet that would transport 1.2 million passengers, 13 million tons of freight and 18 million bushels of grain across the upper great lakes over the next five decades.

 

On May 11 1912, The Hamilton Spectator told its readers "No place in the Dominion of Canada is going ahead like Port McNicoll, the new Canadian Pacific Terminal and deep water Port for the upper lakes. Port McNicoll is but 100 miles from Toronto and is destined to become one of the greatest inland cities in North America".

 

But by the 1960's, faster railways, better roads and emerging air travel spelled the end of the Great Lakes ships. In 1965 CPR shut down their Port McNicoll operations and in 1967, exactly 100 years after Confederation, the Keewatin was sold for scrap, but was miraculously saved at the last minute by American maritime history buff RJ Peterson. The "Kee" was towed to his Michigan marina where the grand old lady rested for the next 45 years.

 

Without CPR's economic engine fuelling the town any longer, Port McNicoll, once hailed as the "Chicago of the North" became a virtual ghost town, little more than a bedroom community for nearby Midland. The town continued to stagnate over the next four decades.

 

But in 2005, an Israeli immigrant with a passion for Canadian history had a vision for the re-birth of Port McNicoll. Gil Blutrich knew instinctively that the Keewatin would be a symbolic key to the revitalization of the town. And so, in 2012, along with an army of local volunteers, who stand at 130 strong today, and are just as passionate about this important artifact of Canadian history as they were on that warm day in June, realized their dream when they brought the Keewatin back home.