S.S. Keewatin sailing into new home at Kingston museum

S.S Keewatin on Friday July 31, 2015 (Chris Garry/ CTV Barrie)

The Marine Museum of the Great Lakes in Kingston, Ont. has announced it will be the new home of the S.S. Keewatin, the last Edwardian-era steamliner in existence.

The ship was built in Scotland in 1907, and formerly owned by CP Rail.

Chris West, board chair of the marine museum, says that it once ferried tourists, settlers, and cargo throughout the Great Lakes.

"CP ships…were making the passage from Port McNicoll, and then to Thunder Bay and then taking people out west, and then bringing grain and things like pot ash back east,” West says. "It’s a nation building story. And it’s the only one (left)."

It was decommissioned in the 1960’s. The ship has been docked at Port McNicoll, near Barrie, Ont., since 2012, after bring acquired from Michigan. It will arrive in Kingston by early Fall.

West says it will be prepared for tours, which are expected to begin by the spring of 2024.

"If I could give you a visual picture of the engine room, you go down stairway, after stairway, after stairway, you’re three stories down looking up at massive steel push rods that push massive pistons down below. It was all fired by state-of-the-art boilers, with quadruple expansion,” West said.

“But you're down there and you know you’re in a movie. It’s that thrilling." 

Skyline Investments Inc. donated the ship.

"We're pleased to donate this historic and treasured passenger ship to the Marine Museum of the Great Lakes to ensure its continued long-term preservation," said Blake Lyon, CEO of Skyline Investments.

"Kingston is an amazing location for the Keewatin to receive maximum exposure, and the Marine Museum, with its historic dry-dock, is well qualified to maintain the Kee and showcase its important history – a goal we all share."

The ship has been a historical attraction in Port McNicoll since it was acquired and fixed up by the RJ and Diane Peterson Keewatin Foundation. 

“While we are saddened Keewatin will leave Port McNicoll, we are pleased that she will be preserved for generations to come at her new home at the Marine Museum of the Great Lakes, and will share our experience and expertise with the Museum," said Wayne Coombes, President of Friends of Keewatin, said in a news release. 

Once in Kingston, the museum will have an on-shore welcome centre that will host artifacts with more information on the role ships like this played in Canada’s western expansion. West says that will help create wider-context, including the displacement and effect on Indigenous peoples.

"This is history and (the) Keewatin has been very central to living history."