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Canada's Oldest Vessel ? 80576 GREAT WESTERN Windsor, Ont., Barge 1866 Walkerville, Ont., 220.0 x 40.2 x 10.0 973 United Towing & Salvage Co. Ltd., ft. Manitou St., Port Arthur, Ontario. This inconspicuous item in the Canadian Department of Transport List of Shipping places the Great Western in a prime position as a candidate for Canada's oldest vessel. The Great Western was not always a lowly barge. Originally, she was a paddle-wheel steamer outfitted as a railway carferry. Her construction was commissioned by the Great Western Railway. She was designed and assembled in Glasgow, Scotland. Her hull was constructed of 5/8th inch iron plates. After satisfactory tests were made she was taken apart, and each of her 10,878 pieces numbered and shipped to Canada. At the Henry Jenkings Ship- yard, just east of Hiram Walker's distillery on the Canadian side of the Detroit River, she was reassembled under the supervision of Captain John Dean Sullivan and launched, with convivial ceremony, on September 7, 1866. Her initial cost was $190,000 in gold. Her first trip was made on January 1, 1867, with a capacity load of fourteen railroad cars. An account of her early activities is mentioned in the June 6, 1872 issue of the Essex Record, published at Windsor, Ontario: During the month of April, the carferry Great Western, transported 11,226 'cars across the Detroit River, from Windsor to Detroit and vice versa, in addition to the engines; and it was then believed that her capacity had been reached. How- ever, during May, the totals were: locomotives, 21; passenger cars, 339; freight cars, 12,621, The number of trips made during the 31 days was 1,038 or, a daily average of about 334, which was almost 1% trips each hour. In 1929 the Great Western was honorably retired from her carferrying duties. Her hull still being sound, she was stripped of her machinery and upper works, and converted into a sand barge in trade between Windsor and Wallaceburg. In 1940 she was purchased by the United Towing and Salvage Company, for whom her seemingly indestructible hull still serves the lakehead harbors of Port Arthur and Fort William. (CES) The venerable GREAT WESTERN from an album photo in the collection ' of the late William A. McDonald. Dossin Museum.