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MARINE NEWS The new ferry built for the Ontario government to operate on the Pelee Is land service has been fitting out at Port Weller Dry Docks and soon will be co mmencing operation. A contest to select a name for the new ferry was held amongst Pelee Island school children, and the name chosen was JIIMAAN, which is re markably similar to CH I-C H E EM AU N (the name of the Ontario Northland's Ma ni t o u l i n Island ferry) and also means something like "big canoe" in a local aboriginal dialect. The ferry's hull is painted white, with blue w a v e like lines along it, while the twin funnels also are white, with the p r o v i n cial emblem, the trillium flower, outlined in green. Two old ferries may soon be leaving the lakes. Recent reports ind icate that Peterson Builders, of Stu rgeon Bay, Wisconsin, has applied to the United States Mariti me A dm in is t r at io n for p er mis si on to sell two carferries it owns to Ko ns tantinos Makrydakis, of Athens, Greece, for scrapping. The ships are the former Ann Arbor Railroad's ARTHUR K. ATKINSON, (a) ANN ARBOR NO. 6 (59), built in 1917, and VIKING, (a) ANN ARBOR N O . 7 (64), which dates from 1925. Idle for many years now, the AT K I N S O N is lying at Kewaunee, while VIKING has been laid up at Sturgeon Bay. It had been hoped that the ferries might some day be ref urb is hed and returned to service on Lake Michigan, but such was not to be and the scrapyard seems their only possible destination. A report carried in the Detroit press on April 18th indicated that there may yet be active life in store for the venerable former Bob-Lo Island ferries COL UMBIA and STE. CLAIRE. Larry Spatz, owner of the Baja Beach Club, which bought the two famous steamers last autumn, was quoted as saying that "... if all goes well, the STE. CLAIRE will resume cruises from Detroit to BobL o . . . " In addition, an option to purchase COLUMB IA has been granted by the Spatz company to Don Barden, owner of Detroit's cable television system, a p parently for operation. If Barden does not take up the option, Spatz r e p o r t edly will seek city approval to dock CO LU MB IA near the Hart Plaza in d o w n town Detroit, featuring live ent ertainment and video games aboard. It is to be hoped that the operating careers of COL UMB IA and STE. CLAIRE have not yet reached an end, and that these two historic ships may continue to carry e x cursionists on the Detroit River. Yet another of the lakes' 1,000-footers has changed her colours. This time, it is the 1978-built GEORGE A. STINSON, owned latterly by Stinson Inc., and operated through 1991 by the M. A. Hanna Company, agent, in the service of the National Steel Corporation. In March, 1992, however, Stinson Inc. a n nounced that it had arranged for the op eration of the STINSON to be taken over by the Interlake St eamship Company, of Cleveland. Accordingly, STINSON is now op erating with the bla ck -an d- ora ng e Interlake stack design, and the big "Flying 'N "' has been removed from her bow. The change means that GEORGE A. STINSON is now one of four 1, 00 0-footers in Interlake colours, where she joins JAMES R. BARKER, MESABI MINER and PAUL R. TREGURTHA, all of which are ne ar -s is te rs hi ps to their new fleetmate. It also means that in 1992, for the first time in a great many years, no vessels are op erating on the lakes under Hanna management, and the familiar Hanna "S t a r - a n d - 'H '" stack design can no longer be seen. The c e me nt -c ar ry in g m o t ors hi p ENGLISH RIVER is this year sporting new livery for the first time in many years. The change a pp ar en tl y reflects the a c q u i sition of the ship by Canada Cement Lafarge, in whose service she was e m ployed by her former owner, Canada Ste amship Lines. C . S. L. will continue to operate ENGLIS H RIVER for her new owner (much as it runs STEPHEN B. ROMAN for Essroc Cement). The Canada Steamship Lines "billboards" down ENGLI SH RI VER'S sides have been painted out, al though the hull so far has remained grey with white trim. The stack, however, is now dark grey, and on it appears the Canada Cement Lafarge symbol, a large white stylized letter 'C ' set in a circle whose left half is black and right half is red. So far, there has been no suggestion of any rename for the ship. ENGLISH RIVER was built at Col lin gwo od in 1961 as a package freighter and was co nverted in 1974 to carry cement.