Newsprint Carrier CHICAGO TRIBUNE & 2 Sisters (Revisited)

Our trip to Toronto just after Christmas in 1987 was actually to give some pleasure to a special person whose time would soon come to an end. Seeing three old canallers laying and waiting at the harbour front for the next season was bonus and appropriate examples of despite accepting change, sooner or later all things come to an end. My memories of the CHICAGO TRIBUNE were from a time when her owner then, the Quebec & Ontario Transportation Co. (Q&O), always maintained its fleet very well and the ships present a very smart appearance, not like what I saw of her and sisters STELLA & EVA DESGAGNES on that cold winter day in 1987. Though short and stubby, I recall all three ships, (though the sisters had different names), would quickly push their way with ease through the Welland Canal fully loaded and low in the water with newsprint produced in nearby Thorold, soon to be made into newspapers for, you guessed it, the 'Chicago Tribune'. Though I have not been able to find out the fate of the M.V. CHICAGO TRIBUNE, soon after I took these photos, the EVA DESGAGNES which also bore the names GRIFFON and FRANQUELIN when working for Mohawk Navigation was sold to a Mexican company and then scrapped in 1989.
Meanwhile her 349' sister STELLA DESGAGNES which was known as TECUMSEH when when owned by Beaconsfield Steamship and Mohawk Navigation, and then NEW YORK NEWS when Q&O owned her, became WOLF RIVER in 1997 when she started hauling pulpwood for Gravel & Lake Services of Thunder Bay to Duluth, Minnesota.

Go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/Summerstownseawayshippingnews/ for more of Brenda's pics on her Summerstown Seaway Ship Watchers group.  

However that stint apparently only lasted for about a year when her new life of sitting idle began which appears to the case when my friend, Brenda Benoit, of Summerstown, Ontario snapped her last week parked in front of the former Navy tug PENINSULA in Thunder Bay. Though the day appeared to be coming to an end in Brenda's beautiful photograph, the built in 1956 WOLF RIVER awaits the new day and work, now as a barge laid up in Thunder Bay. For some, life goes on.

In better days, STELLA DESGAGNES is downbound on the Welland Canal above Bridge 11 at Allanburg in May 1986 - A John Coulter Collection photo courtesy of Fred Miller, Port Huron, Michigan,

BTW, to view thousands of Great Lakes ship photos both modern and vintage, be sure to checkout http://www.greatlakesships.ca or http://www.oceanships.ca for photos of ships from elsewhere around the world. You'll be Glad You Did!!