The Steamer Rescue (Papers, 1923)
"The Steamer Rescue" is a historical sketch by Captain James McCannel, master of the Canadian Pacific steamer Assiniboia, in the 1923 annual of the Thunder Bay Historical Society. It follows the Rescue, the first steamer to carry mail from Collingwood to Fort William, and adds a log of her first trip in July 1858 and a newspaper interview with her captain, James Dick.[1]
What it covers
The Rescue was built at Buffalo in 1855 as a twin-screw tug, 121 feet long and about 350 gross tons. Captain Dick and his brother bought her cheaply, added a cabin and fitted her for Lake Superior, because a Toronto company held the contract to carry the mails to the Red River settlement. She is recorded as the first registered Canadian steamer to pass through the lock at Sault Ste. Marie, making two round trips in July 1858, and she took the Prince of Wales on a harbour trip at Collingwood on 10 September 1860.[1]
The log from an unnamed correspondent of the Toronto Globe records the first trip: leaving Collingwood on 12 July 1858 with mails for the Red River settlement, calling at the Bruce Mines and the Sault, and anchoring off Fort William on the evening of the 15th. The party visited the Jesuit mission and fished at the Current River; the round trip took seven days and six hours and covered 1,250 to 1,300 miles at about ten miles an hour. In the 1886 interview, reprinted from the Kingston Whig via the Thunder Bay Sentinel, Dick says the Hudson's Bay Company fought the venture and had the mail contract cancelled, that Simon James Dawson laid out the route to Fort Garry, and that he was surrounded by a hundred canoes when he anchored off Fort William at night.[1]
Key Thunder Bay facts
- The first call at Fort William was on 15 July 1858; the Hudson's Bay Company factor came out in a large canoe rowed by twenty Indians, and Mrs. McIntyre, the agent's wife, received the visitors.[1]
- Dick said that when he first went up the lakes only three white men lived along the route, and that the first mail he carried was two letters and three papers.[1]
- The Rescue had an official number of 33528 and was 248 net tons.[1]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 James McCannel, "The Steamer Rescue, a Pioneer in Great Lakes Shipping", Papers of the Thunder Bay Historical Society, 1923 (Thunder Bay Historical Society, Fourteenth Annual Report), pp. 11–14 (scan pp. 55–58). archive.org.