Great White Fleet: Celebrating Canada Steamship Lines Passenger Ships
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by John Henry
Dundurn Press, Toronto, 2013
142 pp., illus., $30 hardcover
Most of us have heard of Canada Steamship Lines, the major freight shipping company now owned by the family of former Prime Minister Paul Martin. However, only a few of us might recall that from 1913 to 1965 the company operated one of the largest inland passenger steamship fleets in the world.
The “Great White Fleet,” as it was known, and an era of travel that has long passed us by, are brought vividly back to life by retired journalist and steamship history enthusiast John Henry.
Henry acknowledges that the inspiration for his book came when he heard that the company had donated its archives about the fleet to the Marine Museum of the Great Lakes in Kingston, Ontario. His well-researched history of the fleet has been enhanced by that impressive collection of photographs, promotional posters, fleet schedules, and other illustrative memorabilia.
Paging through the book is a pleasant step back in time, apart from a riveting chapter devoted to the most devastating moment in the fleet’s history — the fire aboard the Noronic at Toronto in 1949. Henry makes it just as tempting to book a boat trip today as it must have been for travellers half a century to a century ago.
— Deborah Morrison (Read bio)
Deborah Morrison is the executive director of SEVEC and the former president and CEO of Canada’s History Society.