Canadian Transport Sourcebook

The Thunder Bay Harbor

by Peter McKellar

This Paper Treats of Some of the Critical Crises Through Which the Twin City Harbors Have Passed

The Fort William Harbor was on the Kaministiquia River, which enters the bay in three branches. The river channels are miles in extent, and the bottom consists of stratified clay, which required to be dredged in many places to accommodate shipping.

The Port Arthur Harbor was situated on the shore of Thunder Bay, about three miles from Fort William, and consisted mostly of rock and hard pan, which necessitated the building of piers and docks out into the open bay, and backwater protection, to accommodate shipping.

The Port Arthur people contended that a harbor could not be made and kept open on the Kaministiquia River. as the bottom consisted of shifting sand and silt that would fill in as fast as dredged, and, of course, any developments made there would be money wasted.

The Fort Williamites claimed that the river bottom was not shifting sand and silt, but stratified clay, the best material possible for harbor purposes; and that the Port Arthur harbor bottom was hard pan and rock, and the cost of enlarging its capacity compared with that of the Fort William harbor would be as the cost of excavating rock compared with dredging clay.

It will be seen by the above that the two parties were directly opposed to each other, and, being human, some, of course, carried their aggressiveness beyond reason, and thereby gave cause for bitter controversies which continued for about thirty years. Yet, for all that, the people of the two places continued friendly in a social way.

There had been many efforts made to put a stop to the dredging in the river. The late Mr. John McKellar, ex-mayor, was chiefly responsible for keeping the dredging going. He persevered and succeeded, under strong opposition, in securing from the Government a small appropriation f or dredging the river on nearly every occasion that Port Arthur had received an appropriation for the Port Arthur harbor. The late Mr. S. S. Dawson, then M. P. for this district and a resident of Port Arthur, helped the mayor very much in securing even these small appropriations, which no doubt were the chief means by which the river harbor was kept from being effectually closed to heavy shipping for many years.

There were annual delegations to Ottawa and Toronto from the Twin Cities or Towns while the Parliaments were in session. As was usual in those days, the late Mr. Thomas Marks headed the Port Arthur delegation and Mr. John McKellar headed the Fort William delegation. Each of them had been a municipal councilor, reeve and mayor. Besides these, many others on each side were active in these controversies. On one occasion, the Fort William delegation was in Ottawa and succeeded in getting the Government to promise an appropriation of $15,000 for dredging the river. Then they left for Toronto to attend to the Provincial affairs. Soon afterwards, Mayor McKellar received word that the Fort William appropriation was left out of the estimates. He took the next train for Ottawa. Mr. Dawson, M. P., was greatly surprised to hear it, but on looking up the matter found it was true. He said: "We will see Dr. Tupper, Minister of Public Works, about it." Dr. Tupper, after consideration, said he could fix it. "We will make one harbor of the two, and issue an order that $15,000 of the appropriation be applied in dredging the river." In the spring, when the dredges started work in the river, many were surprised, as the appropriation did not appear in the estimates in the regular way.

Now, after the "smoke" had cleared away, it appeared that each party did believe that developments made in the other harbor would be money wasted, and that the only way to prevent such waste of money was to get the Government to stop development—in the case of Port Arthur, stop building docks and piers; and in the case of Fort William, stop dredging the river. The Fort William people had little weight in holding up the Port Arthur developments, as during the early developments there were more stranded boats to be accounted for in Fort William than in Port Arthur, on account of the natural conditions, along with the want of proper buoying in the river. Again, the Government would naturally favor Port Arthur, on account of nearly all the local Government officers being stationed there. On the other hand, Port Arthur influence was strongly used to stop the dredging at Fort William, and very nearly succeeded on several occasions. I will only refer to a few of those crises in this paper.

On one occasion, in 1881, the railway contractors, Percil and Ryan, were to get in the winter supplies to the new warehouse at West Fort William. The Canadian Steamboat Companies refused to bring the supplies in to the river, wanting to land them at Port Arthur, claiming that the river channel was impassable by reason of being filled in with silt. We knew it was not true, but there was nothing left to do but try to get an American boat to come in and prove it. As luck would have it, the excursion boat "Peerless" of Chicago, a much larger boat than any of the Canadian boats, made fortnightly trips around to Duluth, calling at Port Arthur on the way. I met the boat at Port Arthur. Mr. Allan McIntyre, a boyhood friend of mine, was captain, and I prevailed on him to run his boat into Fort William on his next trip, which he did, running four miles up the river to West Fort. He had no trouble and he ran in and brought some supplies to the contractors on the next trip. I know this to be true, as it was I who piloted the "Peerless" in to the river on that occasion. After that the Canadian boats brought the freight into West Fort without any trouble.

I might mention that the Government did not buoy the dredge cuts inside the river, neither did the municipality; private parties had to attend to it, by driving tamarac or spruce poles about 16 feet long into the bottom on each side of the cuts, with colored flags on them.

On another occasion the Government ordered the light houses on the Kaministiquia River to be closed and destroyed; but Fort William made such a rumpus about it, the light houses were left, but Fort William had to furnish the up-keep and keeper for some seasons. Had the order been carried out, Fort William harbor would have been closed to shipping for many years at least.

These dissensions continued for years. Finally, in 1906, there appeared on the scene a wise Minister of Public Works, Mr. Hyman. He laid out an elaborate plan for a great harbor covering the two harbors.

The work was soon commenced by the Great Lakes Dredging Company starting five large dredges to work in the Kaministiquia river. Once this great work was starters, the people took it for granted that all trouble about the harbor was over until the report of the season's dredging by Government Engineer Temple appeared in the spring of 1907. Then the people of Fort William were struck with consternation. This report showed the Fort William contention about the harbor to be wrong, and if the Government accepted the report as correct, Fort William harbor was doomed. I knew the showing in the report to be entirely wrong, and wrote the following letter, which will explain matters, and published it. I mailed marked copies to the Premier, Minister of Public Works, our M. P. and others.

River Dredging

Dear Sir: I see an article in the Herald of July 31, "Good Work by Dredging Co.", which gives valuable information, and also information that is false and casts a libel on our magnificent harbor. It shows the great work that is being done by the five great dredges constantly at work from about May 1 until December, and removing about 5,500,000 yards of material during a season. It states: "Constantly as these five dredges are kept at work, however, it must be understood that an accumulation of the same material is constantly being deposited along the beds of those rivers, and that, in all likelihood, so long as navigation is carried on the dredges will have to be kept hard at it and always at it." This would infer an annual expenditure in dredging of $500,000 to $1,000,000, after the harbor is completed, which is an absurdity. The facts are that there would be little or no dredging required for many years, unless for the purpose of further enlarging the accommodation. The materials that the dredges are now engaged in removing are almost entirely the stratified clays that were deposited long ages ago in deep waters before the existence of the Kaministiquia River below the rapids. As the waters lowered and the valley bottom appeared above it, the flow of waters from the high lands back commenced cutting the river channel by cutting through the surface sand stratum and in to the clay strata, continuing it out as the waters receded until the present time.

The river is comparatively deep, and the current slow, back for 10 or 12 miles to the rapids, and of course only light sediment would reach to or near the mouth of the river which would naturally be removed by the recurring freshets. In proof of this, examine the bed of the river and (with few exceptions) you will find it to consist of the stratified blue clay.

Of course, it is understood that some of the heavy material from the surface sand stratum, would be washed in with freshets and the swash of steamers. That would be trifling, as the clay strata for the most part reaches higher than the freshets' high water mark.

According to natural conditions, the above showing is practically correct, and from my experience I am convinced it is. For many years I was one of the parties who attended to marking out the channel, or rather the dredge cuts through the channel, by driving long spruce poles with flags on each side of the cuts.

The first cut through the bar at the mouth of the river was made in 1873 by the Williams Dredge Co. of Duluth. It was narrow and about 11 feet deep. Capt. Symes brought the first boat, the Manitoba, into the, river that same summer. The river was not again dredged for seven years, yet the same class of boats continued to come in, but occasionally had trouble by reason of the slight narrowing of the cut by the lateral wave wash. On account of the continued enlargement of the boats from a draught of 10 feet up to 20, the cuts through each shoal had to be redredged to increase the depth and width, stage by stage. The enemies of the harbor represented the cause of the redredging to be the refilling of the channel; and even the people of Fort William, with a few exceptions, believed it.

When the narrow cut, 40 feet, was exposed through the bar to the waves and storms for seven years and then only partially filled in, although unprotected, there need be no fear of the expense of keeping the harbor opened, when enlarged as it is being done now. When completed, especially if protected by walls at the mouth, there will be little or no dredging required, excepting for further accommodation or enlargement.

The development went on, and the engineer's report disappeared from view, whether my letter had to do with it or not, I do not know. About a year afterward I was called by 'phone from Port Arthur by the said engineer. He asked for a copy of the report I made in 1907 of the harbor. I said: "I think I have it in a scrap book at the old home." He wanted the copy as he said the showing in it is all right. To cut things short, I found the copy, and he had got a newspaper with it in at Port Arthur. After reading over the report, he was very emphatic about the correctness of my showing on the harbor conditions, that is, that the bottom of the river is not shifting silt and sand.

At one time I did not believe, but now I do fully believe, that the Government engineer was honest in the report he made, but certainly he made a mistake in accepting and making his report on the opinions of irresponsible persons, instead of awaiting another year for his own examination and experience.

After reviewing the whole situation, I have come to the conclusion that each party was right, and also wrong—right when he defended his own harbor, and wrong when he tried to condemn the other harbor.

Now that the two have been developed, we find that together they form a grand harbor, one of the most convenient and commodious harbors on the Great Lakes.