Phil Egan
Few areas of Sarnia have changed as much over the past 150 years as Ferry Dock Hill.
Today, it’s a relatively tranquil section of the downtown business district and home to one of the city’s best-known law firms. For much of its existence, however, it was the busiest place in town.
The postcard collection of Sarnia’s Dave Burwell, which was recently featured in The Journal and available on the Sarnia Historical Society website, contains some startling images of Ferry Dock Hill during this time.
They portray a scene of frenetic activity. A forest of masts rises above the two, three and four-masted schooners waiting to load or unload cargoes of wheat, potash, wooden staves, railway ties, salt, cordwood, shingles, furs, pine and walnut boards, coal or iron ore.
Here was located the Sarnia terminus of the Great Western Railway, where cargoes were loaded for shipment to other towns and cities.
As trade grew, speed and efficiency of schedule became critically more important, but sailing ships were subject to the vagaries of weather.
In the 1860s and 1870s a lack of wind and the rapid current, particularly at the narrow river crossing just below Lake Huron, could result in ships lying at anchor for hours or even days waiting for conditions to improve. It was a common sight to see ships at anchor in the river waiting for a strong wind to help them navigate into the lake. Lost hours meant lost revenue.
Steam-powered tugs provided the solution. They would meet down-bound boats in Lake Huron, towing the 150-ton to 600-ton vessels all the way to Lake Erie, and then lying in wait for up-bound vessels to make the return trip. It was actually a common sight to see one of these tugs with as many as eight sailing vessels in tow.
Competition for business among the tugs was fierce. Tugs based in both Sarnia and Port Huron would race into Lake Huron, each endeavouring to be the first to get their towlines onto a sailing vessel. On occasion, they would travel as far as the Straits of Mackinac searching for schooners to tow.
Iron freighters began to replace wooden ones in the 1880s, giving rise to the lament that a time of “wooden boats and iron men” had become one of “iron boats and wooden men.”
The time of tug-towed schooners began to pass, although tugs would endure. They became increasingly involved in towing industrial barges, disabled ships, and the huge log rafts that were brought down from Northern Ontario for processing in the Cleveland-Sarnia Sawmill Company.