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

Page 39 f[ flnmnHEr- KEEWATIN passing thru the MacArthur Lock with tourists waving from the viewing platform. Collingwood-built steel propeller MANITOBA, ample evidence that the line would stay. ALBERTA and ATHAB ASKA had long lives, running in later years as freighter, and were finally broken up about 1948. MANITOBA continued as a passenger ship until retired in 1950. These were probably the most advanced lake steamships of the 1880's, but they were much outclassed by the larger and more elaborate liners ASSINIBOIA and KEEWATIN, built in 1907 at Govan, Scotland. Despite their foreign origin, this pair is typical of the twentieth century Lake Superior "propeller" passenger ships which are probably the most distinctly "native" form of lake ships. With their engines located far aft, they left the best part of the ship available for passenger cabins over their cargo decks. Modern ocean liners like ROTTERDAM and CANBERRA are taking advantage of this arrangement. Others of this Lake Superior class included the Anchor Liners TIONESTA, OCTORARA and JUNIATA (the latter being now rebuilt as MILWAUKEE CLIPPER), Canada Steamship Lines' HURONIC, HAMONIC and NORONIC, and the Northern Michigan liner MINNESOTA. We can think of no other place in North America where (until now) one could enjoy the luxury of a "boat train", except at Toronto. There on Wednesday and Saturday noons in summer, a train left northbound for the three-hour ride to Port McNicoll. The train arrived beside a small park of colorful flowers, while the liner lay waiting beyond, her sides sparkling white in afternoon sun. After sailing at 3:15 p.m., the ship (ASSINBOIA on Saturdays, KEEWATIN on Wednesdays) spent the waning daylight hours crossing Georgian Bay, and transited Lake Huron by night. In early morning the steamer wended her way up the placid St. Marys River, due at the Soo at 9:45 a.m. On Sunday mornings, the two liners met here. Our most vivid memories of these ships come from a 1962 trip on KEEWATIN, starting at the Soo. As we cross from the American to the Canadian shores on the ferry (now replaced by a bridge), we can see our ship with its huge funnel, silhouetted in morning sun, moving toward us from downriver. She pulls in at the Government wharf beside the smaller steamer NORGOMA. (NORGOMA has since ceased her week-long round trips between Owen Sound and the Soo via the North Channel behind Manitoulin Island.) We board KEEWATIN at a narrow foyer aft, where there is a newsstand, barber shop and purser's window. Most staterooms are on the lower of the Dossin Museum Collection