Random Tugs 177

Here’s an Ocean tug I left out of yesterday’s post . . . one of the Trois Rivieres’ fleet, Andre M.  She has a distinguished past as the former Foundation Valiant, of the company made famous in Farley Mowat’s classics Grey Seas Under and The Serpent’s Coil.

Svitzer moved into Montreal recently, named one tug for the port and

another for 17th century gallivanteur bretonais.  Click here for some backstory on Montreal and here for  . . . Cartier. 

Denis M, a port tug, is an oldie from 1942.

Michigan and its barge Great Lakes is

Indiana registered, and it appears to be Andrie-managed for US Venture.  Here are some specifics.  To my surprise, other Andrie-managed (?) vessels may include G. L. Ostrander and Samuel de Champlain.

Boatman No. 6 seems to operate as a one-boat harbor service vessel.

Since Everlast has captured my imagination, I was happy to see it again just upstream from Montreal.

Has anyone seen a photo of her as Bilibino?  Some of her interesting worldwide history can be found here.

And the last boat for today is Qimu, which

is a rare sight for my southern eyes because of the script on the stern and bow.  It’s Inuktitut, written in a Canadian Aboriginal syllabic script.   Over a decade ago and before I had the habit of carrying a camera, I saw a general cargo ship in Red Hook Brooklyn with its name written in similar script.  I no longer recall the name of the ship, but it looked like this one.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

And unrelated but in closing, here’s a information request from Michael Pak, which you can also see in the comments section to the left above, where you can also post your answers:  “Hello, I’m wondering if anyone here can help me find out any information about my great grandfather John Maitland Adams, a tugboat captain on the Hudson in the thirties and forties I believe. He is mentioned in the March 1947 National Geographic magazine in the story “Shad in the Shadows of Skyscrapers” along with ‘river veterans, Captain, Fred Truax, Harry Lyons,Floyd Clayton and William Ingold.’  My grandmother and great uncles spent their early years on the river, they hauled coal and lumber up and down the river. He retired from the river and became an engineer on the Hudson River West Coast Line. He lived out his life on the river dying on his boat in Edgewater, I think. In his obituary they refer to him as ‘Pop Adams.’  Any records or info about him would be greatly appreciated.”  MP.

Anyone help out with leads?

Here’s more on shad fishing in the Hudson.

And since we’re on research requests, does anyone know which tug would have been towing cargo barge Columbia Boston in Cape Cod Bay in February 1992 when it lost some containers?  Here’s a reference to that event in a Bangor paper a year later because of  flotsam.

 

North Bound 8

As we head upstream into Montreal, an orange dawn greets us from beyond Sainte-Anne de Varennes Basilica.

Closer to Montreal, a line of ships awaits, three at anchor and two down bound.

 

 

Ocean Intrepide switches the pilots.

If I’d been sleep-deprived, my first sense of Biosphere might have been a nearby planet beyond Buffalo-built  American Mariner. 

I recognized Balder immediately, new name notwithstanding.

And the raised metal confirmed my suspicion.

I was not expecting to learn of this direct link to a distant archipelago rich in lobsters and road salt, but one of these years, that’s a trip I’d love to do both for the destination--Îles de la Madeleine–and the journey.

I have no photos to prove it, but I wanted to experience Lachine Rapids, so I took a surprisingly enjoyable tour in one of these get-very-wet boats.

I wanted to see the rapids, because without this perceived barrier to reaching China from here, Montreal might not have become a city.

Because we tied up at Bickerdike terminal, we had the good fortune to see these Svitzer tugs and

 

Oceanex Connaigra, 

here passing the Clock Tower.

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who comes to the end of the actual trip with this post and who will now recap the same trip with some of the details left out.