A Ship to Remember: The S.S. Prince Edward Island

S.S. Prince Edward Island ca. 1920. Close examination shows an iceboat hanging from the port side of the vessel. Valentine-Black postcard

I began posting to my Sailstrait blog ion 2012 and throughout the past decade and more, the single most popular subjects for postings are those having to do with the Carferry S.S. Prince Edward Island. This was not a single post, but a number of entries as I explored different aspects of the ship’s building and operation. Some more recent readers may not realize that there have been a number of postings, so I have linked them in this article together to form a sort of “life and times” of the ship. While there is some repetition between the articles, when read all together they present a biography of the ship.

Unlike many of the vessels I have written about on these pages, I am proud to say I have a personal experience with the ship. First as a small boy travelling with my family on trips to visit the mainland to see friends and relatives and later as a crew member, serving as Purser aboard the vessel on summer postings while working my way through university. As a child it was always exciting to be lucky enough to catch the “Prince” in the ferry lotto. It just seemed to have a mystique that the Abegweit lacked. There was a charm to the interior with dark wood and pomp and circumstance to the decor in contrast to the ultra modern chrome and glass of the later vessel which was hardly as old as I was. Much of the machinery was still operated by steam, although generated by burning Bunker C oil rather than coal. For example, there was a ventilation fan outside the purser’s office which had its own little steam engine which would puff, puff, puff continually. There were also mysteriously placed stairwells at the stern of the vessel what were sealed off. It was not until years later that I discovered these to be separate stairs for second class passengers that went directly to the lounge which was later chopped off to make a vehicle deck. The one-hour trip on the carferry (cars being railcars, not autos) gave several generations of Islanders a taste of a by-gone era of somewhat elegant travel. It was as close as most Islanders would come to an ocean cruise.

The series of postings began with the design and building with my discovery of construction photos from the shipyard where the Prince Edward Island was built. These can be seen here That posting also shows the interior of the vessel before the unfortunate modifications made in the 1930 to accommodate the automobile. At the same time that the ferry was being built, work was also progressing on the ferry terminals at both Port Borden and Cape Tormentine. This was the largest civil engineering project on the Island at the time and was linked with the decision to gradually change the gauge of the Prince Edward Island Railway from narrow gauge to standard gauge, a project not completed until the 1930s. The construction of the terminals is covered in a posting here. Although the Prince Edward Island arrived in P.E.I. in 1915 service between Borden and the Cape did not begin until 1917. A posting celebrating a century of the service is found here. The design of the S.S. Prince Edward Island was directed toward the carrying of rail cars and passengers and did not anticipate the rapid adoption of the automobile but soon it was obvious that changes needed to be made to the vessel if it was to continue on the Strait service. That decision and the resulting alterations are documented in a posting seen by clicking here.

A related posting deals with the vessels that stood in for the Prince Edward Island when it went to drydock on its annual re-fit. These humble vessels the Scotia and the Scotia II are covered in this posting.

And finally the sad ending of a ship which was special to so many Islanders can be found in this posting.

The short distorted history of the S.S. Queen Victoria

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Although not really on the invitation list, the interlopers at least arrived in style. In early September of 1864 delegates from the Maritime Colonies (invited) and from the United Provinces of Canada (self-invited) came to Charlottetown to talk about the possibility of uniting to form a single country. The modest attendees from New Brunswick and Nova Scotia came on the commercial steamers crossing Northumberland Strait, the former on the Princess of Wales embarking from Shediac, and the latter on the Heather Belle which came across from Brule Nova Scotia. The Canadians, on the other hand had taken a leisurely voyage down the St. Lawrence and across the Gulf. The weather was a delight with summer lingering on as the ship passed along the southern shore of the great river approaching the Gaspe. The next morning the Island was in sight. With its low red-hued shores, green fields and white cottages it was, as George Brown of Toronto recorded “a pretty a country as you ever could put your eye upon.” By noon the ship had arrived in Charlottetown. The Nova Scotians had come into port on the previous afternoon and those from New Brunswick late that same evening. A week of talk, talk, talk followed. As behooves a gathering of politicians, further meetings were called for and after a week the delegates were bundled aboard the vessel the Canadians had come in and headed off to Halifax for more talk – for another three years – and ultimately the creation of the Dominion of Canada.

Not the Queen Victoria — With no known images of the ship surviving, this somewhat idealized view of its sister ship, the Government Steamer Napoleon III, has often been used as a stand-in. Image from Confederation Centre Art Gallery collection.

The meetings on Confederation have been well explored by politicians and historians but precious little has been written about the Canadian vessel – the S.S. Queen Victoria. A 2018 volume by John G. Langley, curiously titled Canadian Confederate Cruiser, contains some information about the life of the ship, but there is more background than foreground as regards the ship itself. To be fair to the author, there is relatively little information about the Queen Victoria which has survived; no photos, no plans, few descriptions. However, even without the cameo role the ship played in the drama in Charlottetown it is an important vessel in Canadian marine history.

In the early 1850s the United Provinces of Canada (Ontario and Quebec) began a program of lighthouse building and improvements to the navigation of the St. Lawrence River. In addition to the need for vessels to supply the buoys and navigation structures the government also required vessels for towage and salvage services to assist vessels on the River below Quebec. François Baby, a Quebec entrepreneur who already had a small fleet of tugs on the river responded to the tender call promising two steamer tugs. He, in turn, contracted with the Scottish firm of Robert Napier, a major shipbuilder on the Clyde , for the two “sister ships,” later named the Napoleon III and the Queen Victoria.

The vessel specifications called for the vessels to be powered by single screw engines. They were 170 feet long with a 30 foot beam and drew 17 1/2 feet. The iron hull had a flush deck with straight stem and extra plating along the waterline to offer some protection from ice. With two boilers, each with its own funnel, the vessel could reach a speed of 13 knots. On board was accommodation for the crew and facilities to provide needs for upwards of 150 emigrants who might need to be transferred from passenger vessels to the shore. In addition a limited number of cabins and a saloon gave a measure of comfort for more fortunate passengers in the stern of the vessel.

Both the Queen Victoria and the Napoleon III were well-suited for the purposes for which they were built and, in addition, both were used at various times to accommodate elected officials, government officers, and even the Governor General on summer inspection tours. However, in spite of a government operating subsidy the privately-owned vessels were an economic failure for Baby. Short falls in revenues were covered by loans and mortgages and by 1860 the registered owner of both ships had become the Provincial Government.

It was probably simply the luck of the draw that it was the Queen Victoria rather than the Napoleon III was chosen to transport the Canadian Delegates to the Charlottetown Conference. The Napoleon III went on to become one of the first vessels in the fleet of what became the Canadian Coast Guard. The vessel survived until 1890 when it was lost off Glace Bay Nova Scotia. It survived its sister ship by almost a quarter century as history had other plans for the Queen Victoria. Two years after its trip to Charlottetown the Queen Victoria was chartered out for a trading voyage to Cuba in a sort of early trade mission exchanging Canadian cabbages for Cuban cigars. The experiment ended disastrously and the Montreal Herald was scathing in its assessment of the vessel: “Every one knew she was not a steamer that could profitably sailed. … She carried little cargo, had accommodations for few passengers, and was a a terrible burner of coal.” On her return trip from Havana, the Queen Victoria was caught in a hurricane off the Carolina coast Fortuitously, just as she was on the verge of sinking, another vessel came across her and with the exception of one crew member who had been killed in the height of the storm, and another who later expired, all aboard were saved. In a bizarre turn of events, while the crew and passengers were able to escape with only the clothes they were wearing, the captain managed to save the ships bell and a silver tea service. It was later reported that he had been hiding below at the height of the storm.

The Queen Victoria has been the subject of a very American-style attempt to glorify the relics of Confederation. A great deal of diplomatic effort and some very large sums were dedicated to an attempt to have the ship’s bell re-patriated from the Maine community where it ended up, and when that failed, a replica was commissioned. Although no plans or images of the vessel have a survived a not particularly good model was constructed for public display at the Confederation Centre Art Gallery. The Langley book noted above appears to be part of the attempt to overly glorify the ship. He proclaims the vessel as a Royal Yacht by virtue of the fact that the Prince of Wales was briefly on board as part of a tour in 1860. He also assigns the ship’s bell the title of “Canada’s Liberty Bell.” It is perhaps fortunate that the spittoon in the vessel’s smoking room did not survive as it too, would probably be given some glorious role in Confederation.

The silliness of this glorification unfortunately obscures the important that the Queen Victoria and the Napoleon III played in the Dominion’s nautical heritage.

A Strange Vessel in the Gulf: The Steam Mackerel Steamer “Novelty”

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Steam Mackerel Steamer “Novelty” at Union Wharf Portland Maine 1887.

In the summer of 1886 mackerel fishermen from Tignish and other Gulf of St. Lawrence ports found a strange American vessel on the fishing grounds. Normally carrying no sails, the vessel was the first steam-powered fishing boat to be found on the Canadian mackerel grounds. For the Island shore-based fishers the new vessel represented a double threat. Not only was the steamer a major irritant in the disputes between the small-boat Islanders and the visiting Americans, the vessel was also equipped with purse seine gear which some fishermen claimed would bring an end to the mackerel fishery itself. The purse seine was a large net with a drawstring bottom which would be used to circle the entire mackerel school. The bottom of the net would be drawn closed and the whole school trapped within the net. Although more efficient for catching fish, the shore fishermen feared that the purse seine would bring an end to hand-line fishing and the destruction of the fishery. By catching the entire school the net took in all fish, no matter what size. Juvenile fish, spawning fish and species other than mackerel would be caught and discarded. Large numbers of dead and dying fish would be left in the wake of the seine boat’s passage. Use of the seines in the New England waters had severely damaged the numbers of spawning fish reaching Gulf waters and other species where the purse seine was used such as menhaden (or porgies) had seen dramatic reductions in catches as fewer spawning fish were left.

There was little the Canadians could do as the Gulf of St. Lawrence was deemed to be international waters and without agreement from other countries and any Canadian legislation controlling the fishery, including the type of gear used could not be enforced. Even within the three-mile limit there was hesitancy to regulate the gear used as Canadian fishermen, other than the shore-based boat fishery, were beginning to use the new gear.

The strange vessel in the Gulf was the steamer Novelty, built the previous year at Kennebunkport Maine, to a design by Captain H.B. Joyce. The lines of the steamer show a long sharp entrance, a strait keel, an upright stem and a round tugboat stern; in fact the vessel looked somewhat like a tugboat of the 1880s, lengthened out. The 297 ton vessel carried a modified schooner rig without a bowsprit designed to carry a boom and gaff-mainsail, a loose-footed gaff-foresail and a large single jib when the engine driving a single screw propeller was not in use. It was carvel-built of oak and yellow pine and when launched was said to be capable of steaming at 12 knots.

The Novelty was equipped with two purse seines and four seine boats (one of which was, itself, steam-powered) with a full crew of forty to fifty men and was at the time the vessel with the largest crew and greatest number of seines and seine boats ever carried in the mackerel fishery.

Captain Joyce was no stranger to the Gulf as he had fished from a sailing vessel during five summers between 1877 and 1883. The Novelty represented a substantial investment. At a time when a mackerel schooner of up to 100 tons might cost $8,000 to $10,000 the Novelty, fully outfitted cost $36,000. The crew were not a cost as they were paid on shares with half of the proceeds of a voyage going to the crew, and half to the ship. The size of the vessel, with double the capacity of most of the mackerel schooners, was not the only advantage. Under steam the ship could travel from the fishing grounds to Gloucester Massachusetts in three or four days while a sailing ship would require eight to ten days. This meant that during the season the steam vessel could make several more trips to the mackerel grounds than its wind-powered cousins.

Steam Mackerel Seiner “Novelty” location unknown. Photo: Smithsonian Institution 43817-g

However, Captain Joyce and the Novelty found themselves in the middle of an international dispute over the fishery. While the Americans had had access to the Canadian fishery under the terms of the Washington Treaty of 1875, by 1886 the Americans had ended the reciprocal benefits as regards the fishery. The terms of access had reverted to an earlier agreement which allowed American fishing vessels to come into Canadian ports only on very restricted terms. These included access to bays and harbours for shelter, damage repair, purchasing wood, and obtaining water. Tough stances on both sides of the dispute resulted in the Canadians taking a very restricted view of the limitations. So much so, that when the Novelty put into Pictou to obtain coal to fire its boilers the request was refused and the vessel turned away from the harbour. A later attempt to get coal in the Magdalene Islands by transferring it from a Canadian ship was also refused. To add insult to injury Capt. Joyce was also refused access when he attempted to pick up mail in Tignish as it was not specifically mentioned in the agreement. Nor could the steamer land its catch for transshipment by rail to the Boston market. This was only one of a number of incidents which saw the Canadian government seizing and fining fishing vessels for infractions and led to a series of diplomatic exchanges on the management of the fishery. Joyce was forced to admit to a U.S. Senate committee examining the fishery that the experiment with the Novelty did not meet expectations, concluding that “Perhaps it bids fair to operate favorably, but the circumstances this year have been against it.”

The Novelty was not overly successful for the rest of its fishing career. Its high building cost and operational expenses were not fully recovered through larger catches or the speed of getting the fish to market. In 1889, after only four years in the mackerel trade, the ship was sold to a group of Haitian revolutionists who were successful in overthrowing the government. The Novelty, which had been renamed the Jacmel, was sunk in a collision with a Haitian naval vessel in 1891.

The fishing disputes in the Gulf continued although the two counties eventually relaxed the strict observance of the treaties and established a modus vivendi. However within a few years the American fishermen had effectively abandoned the Gulf as a fishing ground.