A Story about the Mississagi and Ben E Tate

[johnfrombrighton]

Guest

Thank you - very much - for your kind words. Feel free to pass the stories along to others.

I don't know that most of the people I write about led idyllic childhoods. They were kids of the Depression, whose parents were what we - today - might call the working poor; working in hot, hard-labour industries like brass making, glass making and sugar refining. But these kids lived adventurous lives where they made do with whatever they had. And ended up doing some really neat things.

And it still is amazing to see photos of ocean - and other ships - moving up the Snye & Sydenham, towering over the small homes on the shore & then docking in downtown Wallaceburg.

The Google Satellites map of the rivers in the W'burg area gives a really good idea of just how much skill it must have taken to get a ship to W'burg.

[Guest]

Thanks for the links. I really love your stories and your style John. Seems that area in that era would make for an idyllic childhood. I imagine I would have loved running a package freighter or canaller back in the day. Except maybe on the big lakes in the autumn. Still can't imagine getting a 300 or 400 footer through those - what seem like canals - especially without modern technology, like a bow thruster.

[garbear]

Also the tug Keewatin and barge Sand Merchant hauled several cargoes of gravel into Wallaceburg.
Then I thought Wallaceburg was supposed to receive corn by water for an ethanol plant. And I also believe they received at least one barge load of fertilizer from Russia.

[garbear]

Wasn't there a tug / barge operation during the early 2000s that ran in to Wallaceburg? I'm thinking it was hauling caustic soda but I may be wrong. Living in Algonac during the 1980s I remember when the Eva and Stella Desgagnes would sometimes anchor in the St. Clair River before making the Sydenham River. I seem to recall hearing on the marine scanner that they were loading corn. For several years during that period there was a salt water vessel docked in the river entrance that could be seen just north of Algonac across the St. Clair River.

Go down to my post and there's a picture of the Stella loading grain.

[Guest]

Wasn't there a tug / barge operation during the early 2000s that ran in to Wallaceburg? I'm thinking it was hauling caustic soda but I may be wrong. Living in Algonac during the 1980s I remember when the Eva and Stella Desgagnes would sometimes anchor in the St. Clair River before making the Sydenham River. I seem to recall hearing on the marine scanner that they were loading corn. For several years during that period there was a salt water vessel docked in the river entrance that could be seen just north of Algonac across the St. Clair River.

[SteveGuc]

I believe that vessels can only get up to the dock at Southwestern Sales Corporation Limited which is basically on edge of the St. Clair River just down stream from Fawn Island. There is a bridge that crosses the Sydenham River on 33 and it's not a drawbridge, so no way a ship can get up there any further than the dock location. Maybe back long ago before the road was built, but not today. Cool story though!

[Guest]

Alan Mann wrote several stories of shipping in the Wallaceburg area that appeared in several issues of GLMI's Telescope during the 1980s and 1990s. These were well written and very interesting.

[garbear]

I'm so glad you posted this! As a landlubber living across Lake St Clair from Wallaceburg, I had no idea that freighters, however small, could and did venture up those rivers to Wallaceburg. I can't imagine them making all the bends, and how time consuming it must have been. But what a delightful sight it must have been back in the day, to see a freighter sailing through a farm field. The article sent me off on a search for historical information about the city and its industries that I never realized existed. For instance, I never knew there was a sugar beet industry there, or that International built trucks in Chatham and shipped some by freighter from Wallaceburg. Thank you! Going to make drive over there once the border opens again.

Loading grain in Wallaceburg.

http://www.boatnerd.com/news/newsthumbs ... 's-RRR.jpg

[garbear]

I'm so glad you posted this! As a landlubber living across Lake St Clair from Wallaceburg, I had no idea that freighters, however small, could and did venture up those rivers to Wallaceburg. I can't imagine them making all the bends, and how time consuming it must have been. But what a delightful sight it must have been back in the day, to see a freighter sailing through a farm field. The article sent me off on a search for historical information about the city and its industries that I never realized existed. For instance, I never knew there was a sugar beet industry there, or that International built trucks in Chatham and shipped some by freighter from Wallaceburg. Thank you! Going to make drive over there once the border opens again.

There was(last I heard there still was) a grain elevator that at one time shipped grain by water. I think they shipped grain out into the 80s.

[johnfrombrighton]

Guest

Glad you liked the story. Wallaceburg was once a thriving industrial town; had a glass factory, a brass factory and the sugar factory. All kinds of ships came off the St Clair to W'burg. Ocean freighters used to carry raw sugar (from the Caribbean) to the W'burg sugar factory for further processing. The C & O trains seemed to never stop; there was also a constant industrial hum in the background. W'burg was once known as Canada's Inland Deepwater Port & had a thriving boat (MacCraft & others) & shipbuilding industry; all gone now.

Here are 2 other stories that give some background into W'burg's maritime history;

https://www.wallaceburgcourierpress.com ... arl-street

https://www.wallaceburgcourierpress.com ... runs-to-it

[Guest]

The January/February 1989 issue of Telescope has a very good article on Wallaceburg.

https://images.maritimehistoryofthegrea ... 28891T.PDF

Another article in the April-September 2006 issue of Telescope on the Ben E. Tate at Wallaceburg.

https://images.maritimehistoryofthegrea ... 29871T.PDF

[Guest]

The January/February 1989 issue of Telescope has a very good article on Wallaceburg.

https://images.maritimehistoryofthegrea ... 28891T.PDF

Another article in the April-September 2006 issue of Telescope on the Ben E. Tate at Wallaceburg.

https://images.maritimehistoryofthegrea ... 29871T.PDF

[Guest]

I'm so glad you posted this! As a landlubber living across Lake St Clair from Wallaceburg, I had no idea that freighters, however small, could and did venture up those rivers to Wallaceburg. I can't imagine them making all the bends, and how time consuming it must have been. But what a delightful sight it must have been back in the day, to see a freighter sailing through a farm field. The article sent me off on a search for historical information about the city and its industries that I never realized existed. For instance, I never knew there was a sugar beet industry there, or that International built trucks in Chatham and shipped some by freighter from Wallaceburg. Thank you! Going to make drive over there once the border opens again.

[Chris M]

Instead of scrolling through facebook, here's the direct link to the article

https://www.wallaceburgcourierpress.com ... through-it

[johnfrombrighton]

Scroll down a couple of articles at the Wallacburg Courier Press Facebook site (https://www.facebook.com/WallaceburgCourierPress/) and there is a story - about two self-unloaders - called Two Ships Run Through It.