S.S. Keewatin Older than Titanic

World’s oldest cruise liner is back on the waves
…….

The 116-year-old S.S. Keewatin – five years older than Titanic – has rounded Tobermory for the last time to leave Georgian Bay and head out onto Lake Huron on its way downstream to the Welland Canal.

S.S. Keewatin – also called The Kee – is headed to Kingston to star at the Marine Museum of The Great Lakes. The last time the Keewatin went through the Welland Canal, it had to be cut in half as its 105-metre length was too long for the canal’s locks in 1907.

After being built and launched on the Clyde River in Glasgow The Keewatin headed to Canada to join the Canadian Pacific Railway’s fleet of passenger liners connecting Southern Ontario to the Lakehead, as there were no connecting roads through Northern Ontario.

The vessel stopped in Sorel, Quebec to be cut in half. After clearing the canal the two halfs went to Buffalo to be stitched back together again.

It then headed to Owen Sound to join the CP fleet of similar-sized cruise vessels. However a fire in 1912 destroyed CP’s grain elevators in Owen Sound, so the passenger service was transferred to Port McNicoll near Midland on Georgian Bay. For 60 years The Kee and its fellow cruise liners made the two-day cruise from Port McNicoll to Fort William – now known as Thunder Bay.

A major train station deposited passengers from Toronto onto the Kee’s dock in Port McNicoll. Eventually new roads made the trip to the Lakehead and further west easier and faster than CP’s passenger fleet. After its last cruise to Fort William in June, 1966 The Kee was scheduled to be scrapped.

However, Michigan entrepreneur R.J. Peterson stepped in and bought the ship, towed it to Saugatuck, Michigan where he operated it as a floating museum for 44 years.

Peterson worried that his sons were going to turn The Kee into razor blades and car bumpers upon his death, so he sold it to Toronto land developer Gil Blutrick, president of Skyline Developments, who planned to use the ship as a floating communuity centre for a $1.2 billion resort community he proposed to build on the shoreline in Port McNicoll.

The vessel arrived back in Port McNicoll in June, 2012 – exactly 46 years to the day after it last left the port. At least 1,000 private boats were out on Georgian Bay to welcome The Kee back home.

Skyline’s housing project never happened, and the developer donated the vessel to a Port McNicoll volunteer group. They hoped to operate it as a museum, but that village is well off the beaten path and sees very few tourists.

To give The Kee a long, healthy future Skyline got a hefty tax relief by donating the ship to the Marine Museum of the Great Lakes.

Two dozen volunteers spent seven weeks preparing The Kee for its voyage through the Great Lakes to Kingston.

McKeil Marine‘s 1,000-horsepower tugboat Molly M towed The Kee and the 81-year-old U.S. tugboat Manitou joined the flotilla to help guide it through the narrow and busy St. Clair River.

Another McKeil tugboat hooked onto the stern of the Keewatin to act as a brake as Molly M pulled the vessel though the Welland Canal.

After crossing Lake Ontario, The Kee was pulled into Heddle Ship Yards in Hamilton Harbour to undergo a $2 million refurbishing before going on to Kingston.

Keewatin Pull

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