End of the Road for First Sail on the Lakes: Schooner Days DCCCXXVII (827)

by C. H. J. Snider

WHILE the leaves of 1947 were still on the trees, we tried to trace the final stages of the first voyage under sail on Lake Ontario - but we tried in a modern two-master, a ketch of 23 tons register, of three times the size and power of that shallop Frontenac, which came into the Humber Nov. 27 or 28, 1678, and into winter quarters in the Niagara River nine days later.

From the Humber to the Niagara River was an easy gallop of five hours for us, with a strong southwest wind on the starboard bow. It would have taken less time had we hit the outgoing Niagara current at the right angle, perhaps, but not knowing any more than Hennepin did about that, we blundered in by-guess-and-by-gosh. It was soon obvious that the middle of the road was no place to fight Niagara, but the eddies and backwaters along either side offered a fair chance of getting up the river.

WONDER OF WESTERN WORLD

Thus we made progress while the wind, even though adverse, was strong enough to force us through the water. But we had to tack often. The thrill of pioneering was ours as headland after headland, high and tree-clad, opened up when we passed the American fort of three flags and three centuries, on one side, and the long ramparts of Fort George and Navy Hall (restored after 150 years) on the other. From the low level of the water the banks looked as wild and picturesque as a savage wilderness still unexplored.

Under one of them, on the east side, we almost came to grief. Our jib split in a hard squall. Refusing to obey the helm the ship came up into the windy and we couldn't box her off with the back staysail. Against our will we were stalled in a four-mile current bearing us down upon the anchored fleet of the Youngstown Yacht Club certain to sink some of them, or be sunk by them if we touched.

Father Hennepin had no auxiliary engine (except sweeps), but then he had no Youngstown Yacht Club fleet to crash, either. So we pocketed our pride, and the hope of doing entirely under sail what he had to do with a tow rope, turned on the power, and steamed out of the predicament until the pitifully battered cocked hat of mutilated Sir Isaac Brock showed overhead above Queenston Heights on the opposite bank.

MIRACLES

Here two marvels greater than ever Father Hennepin tried to tell confronted us—the steel Lewiston bridge, hung on wires across the boiling floods, and the castellated flumes and spillways of the Hydro-Electric power plant harnessing the force of fifty thousand horses by its turbines.

Standing across the swirling current below the bridge on the last tack, we shot into a backwater half a mile above the lowest remnants of the Lewiston wharfage, where there was once a ferry landing. Now a fishing station at 25 cents a shot. A hundred yards out the river spun great circles like a hundred duck ponds floating without shores. Under the steep bank, the stream was placid, or gently running against its own axis. It was too deep to anchor, except close under the tree-crowded bank, where it was possible to reinforce the anchor's grip with lines to the tree trunks.

Here the Frontenac crew moored strong enough to force us through their "barque or brigantine." From the trees around they built a cabin or storehouse, to be near their vessel. For three days, wrote Father Hennepin, "we were busie in making a Cabin with Palifadoes, to serve for a Magazine; but the ground was fo frozen that we were forced to throw feveral times boiling water upon it to facilitate the beating and driving down of the Stakes... The Snow was then a Foot deep and were obliged to dig it up to make room for our Fire." Here they next unloaded the cargo they had laden at Fort Frontenac on the three weeks before - the missionary's portable chapel, workmen's tools, a few trade goods, their scanty stock of Indian corn bartered for at Toronto on the way. Then they through out all the ballast, for here was millions of tons ready to replace it, and they stripped their vessel of her sails, gear, masts, anchors and everything moveable. Then they proceeded to haul her out for the winter. They had no butter boards or skidways, and getting her out and up that steep bank was a hard task. The wood and iron in the Frontenanc's stripped hull weighted less than five tons. Whatever its weight it was enough to break the strongest cable they had twice. Perhaps they ultimately got her out by rolling her over and over like a barrel by means of purchases rigged to the trees above and shores, props, pries, blocks and wedges. This is called parbuckling. Thus was accomplished the first winter lay-up in the three centuries of sail on the Great Lakes. The French attempted further navigation that winter but ended their voyage on foot.

1678—FIRST WINTER STORAGE FOR GREAT LAKES COMMERCE—1947

LA SALLE'S LANDING, unmarked spot on the Niagara River where the first sailing vessel, LE FRONTENAC, was parbuckled up from the river ice in December, 269 years ago.

CONTEMPORARY OF ONTARIO'S FIRST SAIL

Model of a yacht of the FRONTENAC'S time and tonnage, in the South Kensington Science Museum. This craft, dating from ten years after the FRONTENAC's launching (1678), was of almost the same dimensions, 29 feet on the keel, 9 feet beam, 5 feet depth of hold, 3 1/2 feet draught and 12 tons measurement. Her cabin, amidships, was a box eight feet long and deep, and 5 feet greatest height. She was shallow, and had leeboards, and was Dutch. The Frontenac may have been a foot or two shorter on the keel. There is evidence of her having had leeboards. Her rig is not known. G. A. Cuthbertson, who has waded deeper and farther into the original records, in his "Freshwater" hazards the self-questioned opinion that the FRONTENAC was a sloop. We do not think so, but it is interesting to note from this model that the Dutch were using the sloop rig in the FRONTENAC's time.