The Marine Museum of Upper Canada |
This museum was founded in 1959 and operated by The City of Toronto
Historical Board. The collection focused on the waterways
of central Canada, the Great Lakes, and the St. Lawrence seaway. The museum
held ship models, full size craft, and a library. The Library had a
collection of 1500 volumes of books, 50 technical drawings, 50,000
photographs, research notes, logbooks, and other material; material from
C.H.J. Snider, yacht designer C. Herrick Duggan, and engineering drawings
from Toronto area shipbuilding companies.
The site used to be located on the Toronto Exhibition grounds. It was closed, then reopened in a new building called The Pier on Queens Quay. Then this building was closed. In May of 2001 the Department of Economic Development, Culture and Tourism recommended the closure of the museum to the budget advisory. Only councillor Chris Korwin-Kuczynski had indicated an intent to oppose the decision. John Sewell (former mayor of Toronto) wrote an article for Eye Magazine concerning this issue; What's happened to the history ??? The collection was to be moved to one of Toronto's warehouse's for storage. The last contact information was: E-mail: thepier@torontohistory.on.ca; (Directory of Arts, Culture and Heritage Services E-mail: culture@city.toronto.on.ca) |
|
Bill 13 |
Well,
it was Bill 13 of the 37th Ontario Parliament, 1st session.
It is now in limbo, as Parliament was prorogued and all bills were dismissed. Who knows if Tony Barrett will resurrect this bill. |
|
HMCS Gatineau a good start with a poor ending |
The City of Kingston officially became the sole bidders of a Canadian
warship. This ship is the HMCS Gatineau, a destroyer escort of the
Restigouche class. 2800 tons displacement, 112 x 13 x 4 m, she was armed
with one .70 Mk.6 Vickers twin mount forward, one Mk.112 ASROC octuple
launcher, one Mk NC 10 Limbo ASW mortars, and two Mk.32 triple
torpedo launchers firing Mk.46 Mod 5 torpedoes.
The ship is scheduled to arrive in Kingston in April and to be used as a tourist attraction to raise money for the project. The ship will be sunk off of Howe Island. They have scheduled the sinking in June 2003 This project was started in 1998. |
|
|
|
"It is with regret that Waterfront Alliance Kingston has had to withdraw its offer on the HMCS Gatineau. There are too many outstanding issues associated with the 1000 Islands Artificial Reef project that need to be sorted out before we can proceed with putting down a deposit on the ship, notwithstanding realizing the target date of sale in March 2003." as quoted by the Waterfront Alliance Kingston. | |
Toronto ...sinking a ship |
In the wake of Kingston's winning bid on the HMCS Gatineau, let's reflect
on Toronto's past "sinking ship" project.
Back in 1997 the PADI foundation, Project Aware (www.padi.com/aware), started to investigate the possibilities of sinking an artificial reef here in Toronto. They looked at sinking a decommissioned Canadian warship in the Toronto area. In early summer expeditions went out to scout a couple of possible sites to sink the wreck. The HMCS Cormorant and its mini-sub SDL-1 were involved in examining the floor of the lake. Hubert Chrétien (son of Prime Minister Chrétien) and Gene Hemsworth (president of PADI Canada) each lead an expedition. One promising site was south west of Ontario Place as it had a rock and sand bottom at 100 feet. Project Aware was also looking at ways to raise the $500,000.00 needed to sink a ship near Toronto. There has been no further development to date on this project ... even though Toronto has the largest population of sport divers in Canada ??? |
It only cost $138,000.00 for Kingston's bid
on the HMCS Gatineau. There is at least 50,000 certified divers in Ontario ... a $10.00 donation = $500,000.00. Something to think about. |
|
|
If you cannot see the navigation menu bar above then click here.
Copyright © SOS Toronto, 2003. All rights reserved.