The Sandsucker CHARLES DICK (Revisited)

Not much was happening on West Street in Port Colborne, Ontario when I took this photo back in 1974. The downbound bulk carrier NORTHERN VENTURE was slowly making her way in off Lake Erie and sitting on the wall was a cluster of Minor Brothers fish tugs, the laid up sandsucker, CHARLES DICK, and an old American laker that was waiting for her time to be towed to a downbound destination to be scrapped. For over 50 years since being built in 1922, the self unloading sandsucker CHARLES DICK enjoyed what it did best, suck sand from the bottom of Lake Erie, a lake known for its shallow depths and abundance of sand. As a kid, I remember seeing the DICK coming in off the lake so low in the water that I was certain it was about to sink right then and there. Later I would see her discarding her valuable cargo at the cement plant dock near Bridge #20, the train lift bridge which has been gone for several years. 

One day in 1973 while working for the Leamington Post and living on the lake, I was happy to see the CHARLES DICK tied up to the Leamington dock, and soon I completed this a pen & ink/watercolour painting of my unexpected visitor. If I recall, due to beach erosion and other issues, Lake Erie sandsucking became prohibited which shortly left the DICK laid up and idle on the West Street wall in Port Colborne. In 1976, the CHARLES DICK was towed through the Welland Canal's Lock 8 in Port Colborne and left at Ramey's Bend where it was scrapped in 1977. Time changes and eras end for us all.

In ballast and the upbound CHARLES DICK approaches the Welland Canal's Lock 2 in St. Catharines on August 2, 1970. Photo by Ron Ruck, from Late Ron Ruck Collection, courtesy of Brad Jolliffe, Cambridge, Ontario

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