Passing Hails From Widespread Sails: Schooner Days CMXXXVI (936)

by C. H. J. Snider

SUCH a spate of answers, correct and incorrect, came when the plug was pulled the other day - "What Is It? When? Where?- that we need a special column for acknowledgments.

Two things have been established i by the number of answers—The Telegram has many readers outside Toronto, and Toronto people keep their eyes open when they leave the old home port.

While wrong guesses, such as "Brockville or somewhere in the Thousand Islands, before 1900," "Hamilton and Burlington Bay fifty years ago," "Kingston looking down the St. Lawrence," and "Toronto Bay looking east when the steamers ran to the Exhibition Wharf in 1890," came from Toronto readers, a surprising number of correct replies also came.

THE MYSTERY

The picture was a Christmas card from Capt. Turner and Mrs. Turner in Manitoulin Island. They have the finest tourist and cruising outfitting place we have encountered between the Great Galloo and the Straits of Mackinaw, perhaps because of their sense of history and the hearty welcome they give. The information on the card was:

"Shipping activity in Little Current Harbor early in the century.—In the days before railway, highway and air transportation served Manitoulin Island staunch little ships such as these plied between Southern Georgian Bay ports, through the North Channel and Sault Ste. Marie, thus serving the Manitoulin Island during the navigation season. In the winter months passengers, mail and freight traveled over the ice of the North Channel from Massey, located on the Canadian Pacific Railway."

LADY'S MEMORY

"This picture," writes Mrs. W. W. Ferguson, 1 Essa road, Barrie, was taken from the eastern end of Little Current, Manitoulin, on the North Channel of Georgian Bay. In the foreground is the old mail boat, Bon Ami. The picture was taken approximately 1907, in June or July. The cause of it was a raft of logs wedged in the east end of the channel. On one of the boats in the middle of the picture was a man by the name of Rufus Evoy of Coldwater, who took typhoid fever, and the late Dr. John Carruthers of Little Current had him moved to our home, as my. father, the late Mr. A. W. Ferguson, and brother and sister were in the midst of recovery from the fever."

GREEN-AND BLACK TELEGRAM

D. A. Stevenson, R.R. 1, Ridgeville, Ont., friend of Schooner Days and the Blue Duster for nearly forty years, adds:

"Little Current, the metropolis of The Island," in the good old days of the Black Line, the White Line, the green-and-black Telegram, Capt. Cleland, and the unfortunate Jones. Did you know stout Elizabethan old Capt. Campbell, of the lurid vocabulary and the warm heart?'

Black Pete? He was a gem of a man. And I take it that steamer Telegram was the one that gave the name to Telegram Rock?

COLLINGWOOD KNEW

P. M. Baxter, Collingwood, correctly identifying the picture, adds: "I enjoy reading your Schooner Days every week and clip them out and paste them in a scrap book . . . do not know the names of the boats, but have been told that they are some of the old Dominion Transportation and Northern Navigation steamers."

Walter F. Kirk of Cat Hollow, Ont., comes back smartly with "Enclosed you will find a snapshot of a well known Lake Ontario schooner for your guessing contest some week end while the boys are all home. Thank you so much, and compliments of the season to you."

Step up, gents. For the honor of old Cat Hollow, get your answer in early, and Schooner Days will give you still another nut to crack.

One of the earliest correct answers about Little Current was from a valued Toronto follower, John Leonard, 6 Colborne st., certified mate in the steamer New York News. He clinched his identification by pointing in pencil to the entrance to the north channel, upper right in the picture, the town in the background and the cliff in the foreground where the old stone dock used to be. We take it the Bon Ami may be lying at that dock below the cliff. He mentions "also the absence of sidewheelers which were common in those days. The propellers in the picture were strictly upper lake type."

Friend Leonard, like his Cat Hollow colleague, has something else for identification—snapshots of a derelict schooner at Great Sodus, N.Y., taken last summer. Her last charter, apparently, was to act as contractor's plant. The name on her, or what is left of it looks like EUGIE or CUGIE, perhaps remains of Eugenie. Can anyone offer any information?

And don't forget to try Walter Kirk's submission.

And remember we are not yet through with Little Current either.

CAN YOU SOLVE THIS ONE?—A schooner well known on Lake Ontario, but not born there, nor did she die there. We saw her first in 1905 at the place depicted. Submitted by an old Cat Hollow boy.

ANOTHER PUZZLE—What about this hulk at Great Sodus?