Canada Steamship Lines - Growth and Disaster On The Great Lakes

Growth and Disaster On The Great Lakes

CSL's growth through the industrial booms of both world wars was largely tied to the increasing importance of the steel industry in Ontario, where mills were built, or soon to be built, in Sault Ste. Marie, Hamilton, and Nanticoke. CSL also tapped into the last of the remaining coal traffic from Pennsylvania across the Great Lakes to railways in Canada. Following railway dieselization, subsequent coal traffic would be moved by CSL to large fossil-fuel burning electrical power plants.

In addition to its cargo shipping, the company expanded its overnight passenger shipping traffic as well. Most notably the popular Hamonic, Huronic and Noronic of the old Niagara Navigation Company 1902-1912 lineage (roughly 6,000 GRT and 350 foot a piece). Their last passenger ships, however, came out in 1928. They were the cruise ships St. Lawrence, Quebec and Tadoussac; all built at the Davie Shipbuilding and Repair Co. in Lauzon, P.Q. "St. Lawrence" was built in 1927, and Quebec and Tadoussac were identical sister ships of 1928. They ran together with the Richelieu, the former Narraganset (1913) of Long Island Sound, which was purchased by CSL about the same time the other three were built by Davie. The three ships were all 350 feet in length, had a breadth of 70 feet, and were 8,000 tones GRT; the Richelieu was slightly smaller. They sailed on the St Lawrence and Saguenay Rivers, departing from Montreal and stopping at Quebec City, Murray Bay and Tadoussac (where the company owned hotels) and up the Saguenay to Bagotville (La Baie). The Richelieu was able to go on to Chicoutimi because of its shallower draft. The Quebec burned at Tadoussac in 1950 with the loss of seven lives, and the other three ships continued on the route until 1965. After the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway, the Tadoussac's bow was modified to make it able to make a few trips into Lake Ontario, and even made occasional trips through the updated Welland Canal to Buffalo and Detroit in the early 1960s. With the Yarmouth Castle fire in 1965 near the Bahamas, stricter coast guard safety regulations in the form of the new international SOLAS program put and end to the three ship's long careers. The Richelieu, St. Lawrence, and Tadoussac were all sold to Joseph de Smedt of Belgium. The Tadoussac was renamed Passenger No. 2 and the Richelieu, Passenger No. 3. Passenger No. 2 and the old St. Lawrence were eventually scrapped after serving as accommodation ships in the early 1970s, while Passenger No. 3 was sold to Danish interests and was renamed St. Lawrence 2 and served as an accommodation ship for Eastern Bloc refugees before being sold to Arab interests in 1975 as workers' barracks in Sharjah, UAE, where she became half-buried in sand by 1981. The earlier Hamonic had burned due to a dock side fire in 1945 at Point Edward and was later scrapped. Huronic had already been converted to carry only freight by 1944, was retired and scrapped in 1950.

CSL was found responsible for the disastrous September 1949 fire and destruction of its ship the SS Noronic in Toronto Harbour. The fire swept through the ship killing 118 to 139 passengers (many as they slept), but no members of the crew. Inadequate alarm, passenger evacuation plans, and neglected extinguishing systems are found at fault. The captain was suspended one year for abandoning the ship before ensuring crew and passengers were safe. She was demolished in 1950.

No new passenger ships were built by this line or most other shipping lines due to the declining passenger ferry trade. To date, CSL has no known plans for a cruise ship service on or off of the Great Lakes.