Anyone familiar with Georgian Bay likely has heard of the inter-island steamer Midland City. When I first wrote this around 2004 for the Midland Free Press there might even have been a few people still living who had worked on the beloved old boat or who, like me, at least had a ride on her.Continue reading “Remembering the Midland City”
Category Archives: Memorable Moments
Calamity at Key Harbour
A memory by Steve Chisholm I believe it was the summer of 1970 when Grandpa (Kenneth With), my Mum (June Chisholm) and I embarked on a trip to Killarney in Quest. The trip up the shore was great, good weather and calm seas. We spent the first night at Withrock, at Manitou, and proceeded theContinue reading “Calamity at Key Harbour”
The iceman
I have never seen the play The Iceman Cometh, and for readers who know that story, I was not that type of iceman. But the two summers I was a deliverer of the frozen refrigerant in the mid-1950s on Georgian Bay I wouldn’t have missed for anything. Originally, when the cottages were built at WahnuhkeContinue reading “The iceman”
Winter apparition
Fifty years ago (in 1970) we were on a snowmobile running west across the ice of Twelve Mile Bay. A bit of wind swirled fluffy flakes of snow creating a gentle blizzard effect which made the shoreline and islands, as they gradually appeared, stand out from the murky background. Through this gloom nearly a mileContinue reading “Winter apparition”
Last of the log rafts, and Paddling into the sunset
This short clip was published in 1938 in Blackwood’s Magazine in the U.K., in an article by A.H. Lightbourn of Toronto about sailing his 20-foot sloop up the Trent-Severn Waterway to Georgian Bay and north to Pointe aux Baril in 1937 or earlier. They had moored overnight at an island on the Inside Passage “…andContinue reading “Last of the log rafts, and Paddling into the sunset”
From mouths of babes…
I can’t say I actually remember this, so it must have been during the summer of 1939 when I was three. Our front window looked out to where the Inside Passage wended its way among the islands south of Cognashene. One very foggy day as the grown-ups were chatting on the other side of theContinue reading “From mouths of babes…”
Thunderstorms
The boat’s engine noise drowned out all but the loudest cracks of thunder, and fortunately for we two children we couldn’t see much of the lightning because we were under the heavy dark canvas navy top over the Blackduck‘s cockpit. It is my earliest recollection of Georgian Bay. It was probably the summer of 1940.Continue reading “Thunderstorms”
