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3. Marine News - c o n t 'd . Last issue, we reported the August 30th arrival under tow of NICOLET, (a) WILLIAM G. MATHER (I)(25), (b) J. H. SHEADLE (II)(55), (c) H. L. GOBEILLE (65), at Port Maitland for scrapping. The breakers did not take long to be gin work on the venerable motorship, and by mid-October, her stern section had been cut away. The former American Steamship Company self-unloader was one of the oldest freighters on the lakes, having been built in 1905 at Ecorse, Michigan, by the Great Lakes Engineering Works. The second vessel to be named WILLIAM G. MATHER, the former Cleveland-Cliffs Steamship Company's steamer built in 1925 by Great Lakes Engineering Works at River Rouge, was reported in our October issue as having been given new colours by her most recent owner, Harbor Heritage Inc. In fact, only part of her new colour scheme has been applied to the vessel so far, and the hull stripe has yet to make its appearance. There has been much change in the Lafarge cement-carrying operations on the Great Lakes since the entry into service of the Sturgeon Bay-built barge INTEGRITY, which is handled by the tug JACKLYN M. In recent years, Lafarge's needs for cement on the U . S. side of the lakes have been handled by the Inland Lakes Transportation Inc. fleet (formerly operated by Huron Cement), which incorporated the steamers ALPENA, S. T. CRAPO, J. A. W. IGLEHART, and E. M. FORD, the motorship PAUL H. TOWNSEND, and the storage barges J. B. FORD and LEWIS G. HARRIMAN. Very soon after INTEGRITY/JACKLYN M. entered service, the entire Inland Lakes fleet went to the wall, and since then, only ALPENA and PAUL H. TOWNSEND have returned to service, operated directly by Lafarge and with different crews. We cannot comment further on what all this means except to say that it appears to mean the end of the operating line for the historic steamer E . M. F O R D , in her 98 th y e a r , and for S . T . CRAPO, built in 1927, only shortly after having her steam boilers converted to burn oil fuel. The Ontario Northland Transportation Commission's Manitoulin Island ferry CHI-CHEEMAUN ended her 1996 operating season unexpectedly, and denied fans their usual last trip of the season from Tobermory down to the ship's lay-up berth at Owen Sound. The 1974-built CHI-CHEEMAUN suffered a serious failure of one of her two Ruston-Paxman diesel engines on September 30th and, during the first week in October, she sailed under her own power to the PASCOL shipyard at Thunder Bay for repairs. At last report, it appeared that CHICHEEMAUN would remain at the Lakehead over the winter while repairs are put in hand. A venerable structure, reminding us of a Great Lakes vessel of many years past, has made a remarkable reappearance at Owen Sound harbour. The old lum bering tug HARRISON (II) has been out of service for many years, but her pilothouse had been saved and had been in private use in the area for years. The HARRISON pilothouse has now been acquired by the yacht club on the west side of Owen Sound harbour, and that handsome wooden pilothouse of the H AR RISON has been moved there for use as a gatehouse. The 1926-built Holly Marine Towing Inc. tug HOLLY ANN recently was retained to take a barge to Pickering, Ontario, in order to load a large mobile crane at the Ontario Hydro plant and deliver it to Texas via the Illinois Waterway and the Mississippi River. Unfortunately, when HOLLY ANN and her barge arrived at Pickering, it was found that the 11-foot-deep channel to the dock had only six feet of water available, and a dredge had to be called in to make a channel for the tug and barge. It would appear that this shipment has turned out to be far more expensive for Ontario Hydro than originally was a nt icipated...! Recent sales of Canadian-flag lake tankers have removed the availability of boats to carry coal tar out of the Algoma Steel plant at Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. We understand that, in order to fill this void, Purvis Marine Ltd. has acquired a 25, 000-barrel tank barge, which is to be rebuilt at Sturgeon