The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

Ship of the Month - cont'd. 12. As the 1960s began, Harold Dixon looked for other work for his tugs. The J. C. STEWART found some employment in the towing down the Welland Canal of several obsolete upper lake freighters which had been sold for scrapping overseas. Indeed, the STEWART participated in some of the very first such tows after the opening of the new St. Lawrence Seaway meant that lake ship­ owners with retired tonnage on their hands could sell it profitably for off- lakes dismantling. On May 25, 1961, J. C. STEWART was stern (steering) tug to the MATTON towing down the old Hutchinson steamer JAMES P. WALSH. The same pairing of tugs took the former Reiss steamer SUPERIOR (ii) down the canal on June 8th, 1961, handled the old Hutchinson bulk carrier HARRY WILLIAM H O SFORD on June 19th, and on July 9th brought the former Tomlinson steamer RUFUS P. RANNEY safely down the canal. The others were on their way to Hamburg, while the RANNEY was bound for Genoa. Then, on August 15, 1961, J. C. STEWART was stern tug as McAllister-Pyke's GRAEME STEWART towed the old Nicholson Tran­ sit steamer PERSEUS down to meet her fate. Interestingly, PERSEUS was the first of the overseas scrap tows to be lost at sea whilst en route to the breakers. However, the era of steam tugs was drawing rapidly to a close. The Toronto Dry Dock tugs were expensive to operate and coal was becoming more difficult to get for them. Likewise, the shipyard itself was no longer able to compete with bigger, newer and more efficient repair and construction facilities elsewhere. A particular problem was the yard's location at the far east end of the Keating Channel, inaccessible to anything larger than a canal-sized vessel and plagued by continual silting from the Don River which emptied into the channel directly across from the Dixon yard. (Keeping the Keating Channel clear remains a port problem to this d a y . ) In January of 1964, after voluntarily declaring bankruptcy, both the Toronto Dry Dock Company Ltd. and the Toronto Towing and Salvage Company Ltd. were acquired by Port Weller Dry Docks Ltd., mainly to assimilate the local ship- repair business. The drydock and shipyard soon were closed down and the pr e ­ mises eventually were taken over for use as part of the Harbour Commission­ ers' yard; the area now is used by the Toronto Port Authority. The J. C. STEWART, SOGENADA, and the hull of H. J. DIXON, the latter unused for several years, were towed to Hamilton and they were scrapped there during 1965. Ed. N o t e : Sometimes we plan months ahead for a "Scanner" feature article, and others are spur-of-the-moment deals that come together in a few days. This is one of the latter! But we had been thinking for quite some time of doing something related to the "Tugboat Annie" television series, and what better way to accomplish that than by featuring the "real" star of the show, our very own J. C. STEWART? When we began to write the history of the STEWART, we had no idea that it would turn out to be quite so large. Much information came from the records of the late J. H. Bascom, and we thank Gerry Ouderkirk and Bill Breaker for their invaluable assistance. More Than an Island by Sally Gibson (Irwin Pub­ lishing, Toronto, 1984) gives a very comprehensive history of the Islands and considerable mention is made of the winter tug service, including an ac­ count of the "Mutiny". And whatever would we do without our access to "Cana­ dian Railway and Marine World", which for many years was Canada's most authoritative marine publication? It frequently reported matters having to do with the Canadian Stewart Company and the Toronto Harbour redevelopment p roject. We hope to have a photo of COL. M. J. McDONOUGH for our readers in the next issue. Meanwhile, if any members can help to fill in the holes in the STEW­ ART'S history (particularly the 1918-1924 period), we would be pleased to hear from them.