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She Wandered Far From Home The old Great Lakes passenger steamer CHIPPEWA has come to her final mooring in far-off Oakland, Calif. R. E. Kensington has sent us two small Polaroid prints of CHIPPEWA after a fire June 23 while she was undergoing conversion to a marine museun. Unfortunately, the prints would not reproduce. The rest of her story comes by devious means, in- cluding a lot of research by ££. J. "Shine" Sundstrom for his marine column in The Sault Ste. Marie News and Upper Peninsula Farm Journal. Shine got information from Jay Wells, maritime editor of the Seattle Times, Harre W. Demoro of the Oakland (Calif.) Tribune and Otto Lang, a of the Arnold Transit Co., Mackinac Island, for whom the CHIPPEWA was built in 1900 by Craig Shipbuilding at Toledo. A steel day excursion steamer, designed for express service between the Sault and Mackinac Island, she measured 200 x ue 20, 677 n.t. In 1907 the CHIPPEWA and her slightly larger companion on the run, IROQUOIS, were sold to the Puget Sound Navigation Co. (the Black Ball Line) of Seat- tle. The Panama Canal had not yet been built so they went down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic, around the Horn and up the Pacific Coast to Seattle. In 1926 CHIPPEWA was converted to an auto ferry. end in 1932 her steam plant was replaced by diesel. She continued in service until 1964 and then was laid up until Donald V. Clair, owner of the Marine Diesel Supply and Equipment Co., of Oakland, bought her for conversion to a marine museum and floating restaurant. She left Puget Sound May 21 under tow of the Honolulu tug ONEYANA and, after riding out a 60- mile blow with heavy swells, arrived in Oakland on May 27. She was tied up at the Clay Street pier for the conversion work and it was here she caught fire, apparently a case of arson to cover a burglary, and burned so badly the conversion was abandoned. Lang reports that IROQUOIS returned to the Lakes in 1920 and ran between Chicago and South Haven until 1927 when she returned to Puget Sound where she was retired in 1948.