Survivor of the Asia Had Mansion House: Schooner Days CMXL (940)

by C. H. J. Snider

In Manitoulin the Memory of the Minnie M. Is Kept Creen—Another Line-Up of the Little, Current Steamers—A Good Book

A DIP OF THE FLAG TO "JUST CRUISING"

TIMELY, I calls it, shipmates, that Van Nostrand sporting book "Just Cruising," la'nched now. And I'll tell you why.

Last week Stanley D. Baby (pronounced a l'Ecossaise, bawbee) took the Shellbacks to Lake Huron's rockbound shore and Louse Island Passage and other parts in a grand selection of schooner days verse and ballads. Week before, Skipper Bill Hearst (County Registrar W. I. Hearst in his shore clothes) sailed the Shellbacks Club to and through Georgian Bay in his smart sloop Josephine. And here we've had such a freshet of letters about the Turkey Trail and North Channel and Manitoulin and Michipicoten that its like navigating King-and-Yonge during subway excavations to shoehorn this piece into the paper.

It's plain as a pikepole that, as they observe on the farm when the hired man is chased by the bull, the gap's runnin'.

We've been short-changed in our skiing, we've been shorter-exchanged on our trips to Florida, and we're boiling over to get away sailing again. So, as said, Just Cruising is timely.

It's the cream of the already published experiences of thirty-nine top-notchers and myself in Yachting, sailing and powerboat cruising for the last forty years. The cap Y is no typographical error, for Yachting magazine selected them in the first place. Herbert L. Stone, the editor, who gets the glad fist in every cockpit and every club from the Atlantic to the Pacific, both sides of each, writes the introduction. William H. Taylor, his first, mate or associate editor, has done a good first mate's job in rigging, stowing and fitting out the craft.

It deals with big boats, little boats, powerboats, gravy boats and galleys. Not the kind where Ben Hur trained for the chariot race, but the other where you wrestle Greco-Roman with primus stoves, deep freezes and can-openers, according to your skill and price.

Mrs. Edith Bliss and Frederic M. Gardiner, both basement experts, treat of these fundamentals and Dr. Paul B. Sheldon appropriately contributes a most timely chapter on First Aid. Eighteen sound short practical articles like these, on how to do it and what not to do make Just Cruising an invaluable compendium of necessary information.

But the book's prime purpose is entertainment. Twice as many articles, thirty-seven to be exact, are devoted to the thrills, humor, adventure and fun of Western Ocean passages, bayou boating, hurricane fighting, mangrove meanderings, tropic landfalls, single-handing, fog battles, discovering islands, and knocking off two hundred a day, and I don't mean dollars, though I've never done either.

Canadian sailing gets a good slice, Herb Stone, who has done lots of it himself, contributes Nova Scotia cruising and the delights of the North Channel and the Georgian Bay. John T. Rowland deals with Saguenay, Richelieu and St. Lawrence, Sidney W. Treat does Thirty Days in British Columbia waters, and Sampling Superior rounds out the lake bill.

Some of this is yachting with the bark on, some of it surprising information, and the pictures are to the point. It is a fine exposition of the joyous science of cruising and a must for all who love red-blood and blue water. —C.H.J.S.

MINNIE M. AGAIN

"AS an interested reader of Schooner Days for years," writes J. B. Thompson, Toronto, "permit me to say how pleased I am to see you approaching the proper focus of lake shipping by publication of photographs of Little Current harbor.

"As you have chosen to mention the political adventures of the Minnie M., may I put you right? Her political fame is due to transportation of people to vote at Michipicoten and perhaps other polls inaccessible in those days except by water. I remember quite distinctly the occasion and Jim Conmee was in Port Arthur then. Charley Smith, editor of the Soo Express, and Andy Miscampbell fought it out as candidates for membership in the provincial house at the time, and most of the facts are a matter of court record in Algoma. Bill Price would take a lot of pleasure giving you the details, and if this does not remind you, phone him and laugh with him.

(The Minnie M. was the innocent vehicle for a cargo of liquor, cigars, bogus bibles, greenbacks and Michigan pluggers posing as lumber jacks and miners, brought to Michipicoten Harbor and the adjacent Helen Mine in the provincial election of 1903. The pluggers were brought to "bush polls" to vote in the names of dead or absentee Canadians. Neither the master of the Minnie M., nor her owners were parties to this fraud. The Liberal candidate in Algoma West won the election by a majority of 244 votes—but he lost his seat when the petition was tried at Osgoode Hall.)

OTHERS IN THE PICTURE

"In the picture published February 14th, 1950, the steamer Telegram, owned by the Ganley Bros., is next to the tug, which I don't recognize.

"I think the partly obscured ship is the Bon Ami. I suspect that the City of Windsor is next to the Telegram and the ship facing east at the dock looks much like the Germanic.

"You may know it already, but if not, fifty years ago most boys and many girls in Sault Ste. Marie could recognize, from the kitchen or the nearby bush, any Canadian ship making it a port of call, and with equal facility they knew the large American passenger ships, all by the tone and. volume of the sirens.

"It is a pleasure to see you get into the North Channel at last. Please go on to the Soo. They all had to stop or pass there.

"I remember the side wheeler Baltic, as I traveled on her in the early-90's. Coal oil lamps, etc., but wonderful to a child.

"Do you recall the Cambria, Carmona, United Empire, Alberta, Athabasca, City of Parry Sound, Midland, Collingwood, Majestic, Owen Sound, the King Edward, Lincoln, C. H. Merritt, Ossifrage?

"Bill Fremlin, of Hilton, could tell you all about the John Haggart. She was not in the picture with the Telegram as a weather boat.

"I know you have recorded the foundering of the Asia in Georgian Bay and the wreck of the Algoma on Isle Royale, but I do not recall any mention of the old channel north of Sugar Island between Lakes Superior and Huron.

"Have you any record of the collision between the Idaho and Pontiac in Lake George before the turn of the century?

"Thanks for the thrilling narratives over the years, and the wonderful record of lake shipping and mariners which I hope are well indexed for reference.

"P.S. Log booms were a frequent hazard to shipping in those days, especially at night end before the insertion of the manufacturing clause in the Crown Timber Act caused shipping delays in narrow waters and wide detours in the open lakes."

KNEW ASIA SURVIVOR

Capt. E. G. Burke of the Burke Towing & Salvage Co. Ltd., Midland, Ont., writes:

"I have been interested in reading 'Schooner Days' in your paper. While in the towing business I made my headquarters at Little Current for many years living at the Mansion House, which was owned by Duncan Tinkis, one of the survivors of the Steamer Asia, which was lost in Georgian Bay in 1882.

STEAMER ASIA, lost on Sept. 14, 1882, with 78 passengers and crew—one of the tragedies of Georgian Bay.