The CPR Fleet, Port McNicoll

The community of Port McNicoll grew up around the Canadian Pacific Railway’s main terminal between eastern and western Canada for both freight and passengers.  While grain rolled into the colossal elevator, travellers poured onto the ships of the CPR fleet to make the trip across Georgian Bay in luxury.  The elegant twin passenger ships the Assisiniboia and the Keewatin serviced the Port McNicoll terminal for over forty years, along with their freight-carrying contemporaries, the Alberta, the Athabasca and the Manitoba. In 1882, the CPR began looking for a main Georgian Bay terminal to link the rail lines between Toronto and Thunder Bay.  Their initial choice was Owen Sound, but steep terrain and a far distance from Toronto made the location economically impractical.  In 1905, the company surveyed the Victoria Harbour area for a better spot, and settled on Maple Island.  The flatter terrain meant that the CPR could haul twice as many freight cars with the same amount of steam engines, and twice the freight meant larger profits.  After two years of work, the terminal was completed, and the CPR moved both its freight lines and passenger fleet to Port McNicoll.  On May 4, 1912, the Assiniboia became the first passenger ship to sail out of the Port McNicoll harbour. In the early years of the CPR ships the majority of passengers were immigrants heading west, but later, as traffic patterns changed, they became mostly tourists.  The Roaring ‘20s were the most profitable years for the CPR’s ships, as tourists came north from Toronto, then a three-hour ride by train, to take the scenic route across Georgian Bay and Lake Superior. The Assiniboia and the Keewatin’s route took them past Manitoulin Island, through the austere beauty of Lake Superior, past the Sleeping Giant, Pancake Island and Silver Islet and into the mouth of the Kamanistikwa River.  The ships themselves were luxurious, with staterooms furnished in mahogany and brass, a two-deck flower lounge complete with stained glass windows and live music and dancing on an oak dance floor. The water route between Thunder Bay and Port McNicoll was more efficient than rail due to the cost of fuel and the equipment necessary to battle the hilly terrain of northern Ontario. This efficiency, along with the extravagance of the ships and the picturesque route they took, made for a very successful career for the Assiniboia and the Keewatin.  They weathered the Depression, battled ice storms and collisions, and put their early competition out of business.  But as magnificent a career as it was, the era of the great ships did not last forever.  By 1951, the Assiniboia and the Keewatin were the only Canadian ships still carrying passengers through the Great Lakes.  They were running twice a week.  The Alberta, which had retired from passenger service and carried solely freight after 1916, was the first ship to leave the Port McNicoll fleet when, in 1945, it was sold to a company in Orlando, Florida and scrapped.  The Alberta was followed by the Athabasca, which went to the Steel Company of Canada in Hamilton in 1947.  The Keewatin was kept in service until 1964, and it is now used as a floating museum in Michigan.  In 1966, the Assiniboia terminated its run on the lakes, and was destroyed by fire shortly thereafter.