Canadian Pacific Railway commenced its Great Lakes steamship service in 1883 to move new immigrants westward to settle in the vast Canadian Prairies, as well as transport manufactured goods and packaged freight from eastern Canada. Returning eastward, Canadian Pacific's fleet carried bagged flour from the Prairies to be loaded onto trains for shipment to the markets of eastern Canada and the United States, or onto oceangoing ships bound for Great Britain. Despite the completion of Canadian Pacific's Lake Superior rail line in May 1885, this route along the north shore of the lake was challenging for locomotives, as well as long and uncomfortable for passengers. As such, Canadian Pacific continued to invest in its Great Lakes steamship fleet. To increase the capacity and frequency of the Great Lakes service, which already comprised the vessels Alberta, Athabasca, and Manitoba, all built in the 1880s, Canadian Pacific ordered two new ships from the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company in Govan, Scotland in 1907. Hull No. 453 was launched on 6 July 1907 and named Keewatin, meaning 'north wind' in the languages of the Cree and Ojibwa peoples. (Sistership Assiniboia, named after the people of the Assiniboine region of southern Saskatchewan, was launched earlier, on 25 June 1907.)
After fitting out, Keewatin commenced sea trials on 12 September and departed for the voyage to Canada on 14 September, arriving on the 23rd. Although too large to fit through the existing locks at Montreal and the Welland Canal linking Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, Fairfields had ingeniously designed Keewatin (and Assiniboia) to be split into two watertight sections that could be reassembled after arrival in Lake Erie. Keewatin was thus split in two at the Davie Ship Yards at Lévis, Quebec on 5 October. Between 10 and 15 October, the two sections were towed up the St Lawrence River, across Lake Ontario, and through the Welland Canal to the Lake Erie port of Buffalo, New York. Reassembled in Buffalo, Keewatin sailed for Owen Sound, Ontario on 19 December, arriving there on the 25th. After final fitting out at Owen Sound, Keewatin commenced her inaugural voyage to Port Arthur/Fort William (modern day Thunder Bay) on Lake Superior on 7 October 1908. The addition of Keewatin and Assiniboia to its Great Lakes fleet allowed Canadian Pacific to increase weekly sailings from three to five.
On 1 May 1912, Canadian Pacific shifted the eastern terminus of the Great Lakes service to its new rail terminal at Port McNicoll, Ontario, a deep water port on the eastern shore of Lake Huron's Georgian Bay. Located 121 kilometres (75 miles) east of Owen Sound, Port McNicoll enjoyed both a direct, 576-kilometre (358-mile) rail line to Montreal and a lower gradient on that rail line. For the next 53 years, Keewatin would ply the 872-kilometre (542-mile) route between Port McNicoll and Port Arthur/Fort William via the locks at Sault Ste Marie, with each voyage taking 2.5 days. Passengers would board the boat train at Union Station in Toronto for the three-hour, 125.5-kilometre (78-mile) trip to Port McNicoll, with the train pulling up alongside Keewatin at the dock. Keeping the ship on schedule so as not to miss the next train before it departed was a constant anxiety for the captain, as evidenced in Keewatin's logbook. With Assiniboia departing Port McNicoll on Saturdays and Keewatin departing on Wednesdays, the two ships would pass each other in opposite directions at Sault Ste Marie every Sunday.
Keewatin's 288 passengers were accommodated in 108 cabins, comprising a mix of cheaper two-berth inside staterooms, two-berth outside staterooms with a sofa convertible to a third berth, four-berth staterooms, and seven deluxe staterooms with their own en suite bathrooms. Notwithstanding the differing fares for various classes of stateroom, all passengers received the same first class service during their 2.5-day voyage, with access to several comfortable lounges, an open sun deck, and gourmet meals served in a sumptuously-decorated dining saloon. The crew of 86 comprised the Master (captain) and his senior officers; the Boatswain, helmsmen, and lookouts; the Chief Engineer and his engine room crew; deckhands; stewards, stewardesses, and bellhops; waiters and galley staff; the Entertainment Steward and musicians; and a purser.
Keewatin earned the nickname 'Lucky Kee' after surviving the hurricane force winds, nine-metre (30 foot) waves, and blizzard conditions of the Great Lakes Storm of 7-10 November 1913. After the First World War, with the number of immigrants heading westward in decline and the transcontinental rail lines carrying more of the cargo trade, Keewatin and Assiniboia were principally used as cruise ships to cater to the burgeoning tourism industry. While some passengers used the steamships to get to Canadian Pacific's scenic railway service across the Rockies, others simply made round-trip voyages from Port McNicoll or Port Arthur/Fort William to enjoy the fresh air and Great Lakes scenery and escape the summer heat and coal smog of big cities like Toronto and Chicago.
Keewatin and Assiniboia were the first ships on the Great Lakes to have radar installed (in 1955), but the vessels' fate was ultimately doomed by several factors: a deadly fire aboard the passenger ship SS Noronic in Toronto harbour in September 1949, the rise of fast, convenient air travel in the mid-20th century, and the completion of the Lake Superior section of the Trans-Canada Highway in 1960. After the Noronic disaster, which killed between 118 and 139 people, strict new safety regulations were imposed on Great Lakes steamships with wooden superstrucutres, such as Keewatin and Assiniboia. These regulations led to the installation of sprinkler systems and thick steel fire doors on the ships. While both Keewatin and Assiniboia were able to carry on into the 1960s, more stringent safety regulations introduced in 1965 led Canadian Pacific to retire them from passenger service in December of that year, after 57 years. Assiniboia, which had undergone a refit by the Midland Shipbuilding Company in 1954 to convert her boilers to burn oil, carried on as a cargo vessel for a few more years before being sold in 1968 for use as a restaurant & nightclub on the Delaware River in Philadelphia; however, while undergoing conversion in West Deptford, New Jersey, Assiniboia suffered a catastrophic fire on 9 November 1969 and sank at her pier, her hull being scrapped the next year.
Although the coal-fired Keewatin was sold to Marine Salvage of Port Colborne, Ontario and was destined to be scrapped, she was saved in January 1967 by Michigan businessman Roland J. Peterson. Peterson purchased the ship from Marine Salvage for $37,000 and had her towed to Douglas, Michigan, at the southern end of Lake Michigan, on 23 June 1967 to serve as a museum ship at his marina on a bend of the Kalamazoo River. In 2011, Peterson sold Keewatin to Toronto-based property company Skyline International Developments, which wanted to use the ship as a museum at the centre of its proposed residential development at Port McNicoll. After a channel was dredged in the Kalamazoo River, Keewatin was towed to Port McNicoll, arriving to much fanfare on 23 June 2012. Moored at the former Canadian Pacific dock, Keewatin was opened to visitors and managed by a group of volunteers who carried out maintenance work and began restoring her to her Edwardian splendour. With the demise of the planned residential development in Port McNicoll and facing a costly program of required restoration work on Keewatin's superstructure which was beyond the resources of the volunteers and local community, Skyline International Developments offered the ship to the towns of Midland and Collingwood, Ontario. While those towns declined, the Great Lakes Museum in Kingston, Ontario expressed interest in Keewatin to replace its museum ship, the former Canadian Coast Guard light icebreaker and buoy tender CCGS Alexander Henry, which had been sold to the Lakehead Transportation Museum Society in Thunder Bay in 2017.
Departing Port McNicoll on 24 April 2023, Keewatin was towed through Georgian Bay, Lake Huron, Lake Erie, and the Welland Canal, and arrived at Heddle Shipyards in Hamilton, Ontario, at the western end of Lake Ontario, on 29 April. For the next six months, extensive repairs were made to Keewatin's funnel, promenade deck planking, and wooden superstructure, the latter of which required work to seal leaks and replace rotten wood. In contrast, the ship's steel hull was found to be in excellent condition, despite being over 115 years old. Upon completion of the repairs, Keewatin departed under tow on 25 October 2023 and made a ceremonial circle of Toronto harbour before arriving at the Great Lakes Museum in Kingston the next day, where she was floated into the museum's historic dry dock. In May 2024, Keewatin opened to visitors as the centrepiece of the Great Lakes Museum, offering guided tours of the passenger decks, cargo hold, engine room, and boiler room. As of late 2025, work continues by volunteers and museum staff to refurbish and restore parts of Keewatin that will eventually be opened to visitors.
Length: 106.68 metres (350 feet)
Beam: 13.35 metres (43.5 feet)
Draught: 7.2 metres (23.6 feet)
Displacement: 3,856 gross register tons
Propulsion: Quadruple-expansion steam engine fed by four coal-fired Scotch boilers
Propulsion: Quadruple-expansion steam engine fed by four coal-fired Scotch boilers
Fuel capacity: 220 tons of coal
Maximum speed: 16 knots (29.6 km/h; 18.4 mph)
Cruising speed: 14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph)
Passenger capacity: 288 passengers accommodated in 108 staterooms
Crew: 86 crew
Cargo capacity: 4,163 cubic metres (147,000 cubic feet), including pace for up to 40 cars
Photos taken 18-19 August 2025
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| SS Keewatin towers over the Great Lakes Museum, of which she has been the star attraction since arriving in Kingston, Ontario on 26 October 2023 and opening to the public in May 2024. |
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| The entrance to a permanent gallery opened in the Great Lakes Museum following the acquisition of Keewatin. The gallery tells the story of the rise and fall of passenger shipping on the Great Lakes, including the waves of immigrants who used the steamships to make their way to new lives in Western Canada. |
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| A display on the Canadian Pacific Railway's extensive network of rail and steamship routes which connected Europe to Asia via Canada. Although the Government of Canada saw the railway as a means of uniting the country from coast to coast, Canadian Pacific's ambition was even grander. The company sought to carry immigrants, tourists, business travellers, and freight from around the world on its fleet of oceanic steamships to the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, where they would be carried onward across the continent on Canadian Pacific's railway network, using Canadian Pacific steamships to cross the upper Great Lakes between eastern and western Canada. By 1903, passengers could travel on Canadian Pacific steamships from Liverpool, England to Canada, cross the country westward by train and Great Lakes steamship, and then board another steamship to Hong Kong, Japan, and China. By 1923, Canadian Pacific had extended its network across the entire British Empire, using the slogans 'World's Greatest Travel System' by 1929 and 'Spans the World' by 1946. |
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| A 1910 poster depicting Canadian Pacific's entire fleet of oceanic and Great Lakes passenger steamships. |
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| An assortment of Canadian Pacific posters advertising Canada to prospective European immigrants, including one (lower right) targeted at Ukrainians. After having been granted 25 million acres of land by the Government of Canada to build the western railway, Canadian Pacific divided the surplus land and sold it to settlers. With support from the Canadian government, the company opened offices in Europe to advertise 'starter' farms in Canada to immigrants seeking a new life, offering reduced fares on Canadian Pacific steamships and trains. |
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| The Great Lakes Museum's gallery devoted to the Keewatin and Canadian Pacific's worldwide transportation network in which the Great Lakes steamships played an important part. The central display addresses the experience of passengers and crew on the steamships. |
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| A display of period artefacts in the centre of the gallery include an Edwardian style dress inspired by the extravagant lifestyle of King Edward VII (left) and a more practical, less extravagant mid-20th century dress (right). |
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| A Chief Engineer's uniform jacket. There were only two officers aboard steamships with four gold rings on their uniforms: the Captain (known as the Master) and the Chief Engineer. |
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| A display of Canadian Pacific's custom crockery, on which Keewatin's passengers were served their meals. The dishes are decorated with Canadian Pacific's distinctive red-chequered house flag. The silverware and glasses used aboard Keewatin were top quality, and silverware tended to disappear as easy souvenirs; the ship's waiters were required to pay for any silverware that went missing from their tables. In the long dish on the left is an original Keewatin cabin key. |
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| A display case containing, from left to right, a summer-weight cap worn by a purser aboard Keewatin during its final years of service; an azimuth (1875-1900) used by Captain Francis James Davis, Master of Canadian Pacific's steamships Alberta, Manitoba, and Keewatin, to calculate bearings based on celestial sightings; an azimuth mirror and course corrector (1900-25) also used by Captain Davis; and headphones for Marconi wireless equipment (1930-40) used by shipboard wireless (radio) operators. |
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| Another view of the museum's gallery on the history of Canadian Pacific's Great Lakes passenger shipping. A builder's model of the SS Assiniboia sits in a large display case, while overhead, hanging from the ceiling, is a pilot flag which formerly flew on the jackstaff at the bow of Assiniboia during her last voyage with passengers in 1965. |
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| A builder's model of SS Assiniboia made by the famed Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Company Ltd. of Glasgow, Scotland, builder of both Assiniboia and Keewatin. As originally built, Keewatin and Assiniboia had three wooden masts, as shown on the model, from which sails could be deployed if the engine broke down. For this reason, the ships were known as 'Edwardian schooners'. |
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| A Canadian Pacific Railway fire extinguisher, one of a dozen or more that were aboard SS Keewatin when she arrived at the Great Lakes Museum. The tags on the extinguishers indicate that they were last inspected in 1965, the same year Keewatin was retired from service. |
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| Keewatin was built in the same Edwardian period (1901-14) as the ill-fated Titanic, which sank on 14 April 1912 after hitting an iceberg in the North Atlantic. However, as this poster illustrates, while Titanic dwarfed Keewatin, both vessels featured similar state-of-the-art steam propulsion and opulent interiors. |
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| A map showing some of the significant milestone events and locations in Keewatin's inaugural journey into the Great Lakes to commence service out of Port McNicoll, Ontario. While the transatlantic voyage from the Glasgow shipyard where she was built was not a problem for Keewatin, getting from the lower St Lawrence River to Georgian Bay on Lake Huron via the locks at Montreal and the Welland Canal required the ship to be split in two and reassembled in Buffalo, New York. Final fitting out of Keewatin's interiors was completed in Owen Sound, Ontario. |
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| A large, interactive graphic of Keewatin allows visitors to view the ship's key mechanical systems, such as the boilers and steam engine, and how they operated. |
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| Two ornate, hand-carved wooden panels from SS Assiniboia. Nearly identical panels are installed on Keewatin, along with 15 others adorning the oak walls of the ship's men's smoking lounge. The facial profiles carved on the panels are believed to represent people from different countries served by Canadian Pacific's transportation network. |
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| A display on steamship travel in the Edwardian period (1901-14), featuring Canadian Pacific brochures advertising the company's Great Lakes service and photos of Keewatin, sistership Assiniboia, and famous ocean steamships Titanic (1912), Lusitania (1907), and Mauretania (1906). As travel became more affordable and steam technology provided more efficient, comfortable ways to see the world, the tourism industry took off. While the ocean-going ships of the Edwardian age enforced class separations between their passengers, all of Keewatin's passengers enjoyed first class treatment and onboard amenities. |
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| A display of Canadian Pacific tourism posters advertising the company's oceanic and Great Lakes passenger steamship services. The advent of steam-powered transportation permitted large numbers of people to easily and comfortably travel great distances to remote parts of Canada. This new tourism industry was supported by a network of 16 fine hotels opened by Canadian Pacific by 1910, all located near its rail line. |
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| A 1960 Canadian Pacific poster depicting the company's rail, steamship, and air services, described as the 'World's Most Complete Transportation System'. Canadian Pacific Airlines (later renamed CP Air) operated between 1942 and 1986. However, while its airline services grew as travel by air became more affordable, demand for Canadian Pacific's Great Lakes passenger ships steadily decreased. |
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| SS Keewatin, afloat in the drydock at the Great Lakes Museum, Kingston, Ontario. |
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| Looking forward along Keewatin's starboard side. Some of the ship's lifeboats can be seen sitting atop Boat Deck, under their davits. As launched in 1907, Keewatin carried eight lifeboats, each carrying around 20 people; however, this was increased to 10 lifeboats after the sinking of RMS Titanic in April 1912. After that disaster, which claimed the lives of more than 1,500 people, new maritime safety regulations were enacted, stipulating that passenger liners be equipped with sufficient lifeboats for all passengers and crew. |
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| Keewatin's stern, showing the top of the rudder and the large square windows of the ballroom at the aft end of Upper Deck. As originally built, the decks at the stern were stepped and Upper Deck had a larger section of open deck space. This was enclosed in 1928 by the addition of the ballroom. |
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| A head-on view of Keewatin, showing her narrow profile, a function of the need to navigate the locks at Montreal and the Welland Canal to access the Great Lakes. In 1907, the locks at Montreal were only 13.7 metres (45 feet) wide, allowing the 13.35 metre (43.5 foot) wide Keewatin to barely fit through. |
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| Keewatin's hull was painted all white with a 15.2 centimetre (six inch) wide green band in 1919. The pilot house (bridge) was modified in 1946 and, in 1955, Keewatin was fitted with radar. |
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| Keewatin's port side, looking forward. |
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| A panorama shot of Keewatin's port side. Keewatin is so long that it is challenging to get far enough away to capture the entire ship in one frame. Keewatin's original three wooden masts were replaced by two shorter steel masts in 1950, with the furthest aft (mizzen) mast eliminated. In 1955, the main mast was moved aft to the mizzen mast location. The funnel is painted in Canadian Pacific Steamships' buff colour and sports the line's chequerboard house flag of red and white squares. |
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| Looking aft along Keewatin's starboard side. The exit gangway, seen here, is located amidships. |
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| Visitors board Keewatin via gangway, entering the 'tween deck cargo space. A large display of furniture, appliances, steamer trunks, and other items depicts the kind of cargo the ship often carried westward, representing the worldly possessions of European immigrants bound for new lives in western Canada. After having taken Canadian Pacific's train service to Port McNicoll, the immigrants and their possessions were loaded onto Keewatin or her sistership Assiniboia for the 2.5-day voyage to Port Arthur/Fort William. Upon arrival, they transferred to another Canadian Pacific train for the onward journey west. |
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| Looking forward on the 'tween deck. This large, open deck, consuming the forward third of the ship's length, was principally used to carry automobiles. The 'tween deck could accommodate up to 40 automobiles, each tied down to keep it from moving as the ship pitched and rolled during the voyage. For settlers and businessmen travelling between eastern and western Canada, Keewatin's ability to ship their automobiles with them was appreciated and generated extra revenue for Canadian Pacific. |
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| A recreation of Keewatin's radio room, now used by amateur radio operators. When in service, the ship's radio room was manned by staff of the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company Ltd. of Canada. |
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| One of the seven side ports on each of Keewatin's starboard and port sides, which could be opened to load or unload cargo and vehicles from the 'tween deck cargo space. |
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| A bolted steel patch on the deckhead marks the place where Keewatin was separated into two parts in order to fit through locks at Montreal and the Welland Canal. Knowing that the ship would be too long to make it through the locks in one piece, Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company of Glasgow, Scotland designed and built Keewatin (and her sistership Assiniboia) with interlocking plating and bulkheads. After sailing across the Atlantic, the rivets in the plating and bulkheads was removed and the ship split into two sections, which were reassembled in Buffalo, New York before Keewatin sailed to Owen Sound, Ontario for final outfitting. |
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| Models of three Canadian Pacific steamships that were already serving on the Great Lakes service when Keewatin and Assiniboia joined the fleet in 1907. In the foreround is the SS Athabasca, built for Canadian Pacific by Scottish shipbuilders Aitken & Mansell in 1883. Split in half at Montreal for travel through the St Lawrence and Welland canals, Athabasca was rejoined in Buffalo. The 80.16-metre (263-foot) vessel was lengthened by 10.97 metres (36 feet) in Collingwood in 1910 for freight and passenger service between Owen Sound and other Great Lakes ports. Transferred to Canadian Pacific's new terminal at Port McNicoll in 1912, Athabasca continued to operate until 1944 when she was sold to Florida-based interests. Deemed unfit, Athabasca was instead scrapped at Hamilton, Ontario in 1948. |
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| One of the cargo hatches on the deck of the 'tween deck cargo space. The boards on each hatch would be lifted to allow packaged freight to be lowered into the three cargo holds below. Each board was numbered so that the hatch could be reassembled the same way, given that each board was of slightly different dimensions and needed to fit together like a puzzle. |
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| Another display of the kinds of freight that Keewatin carried while transporting settlers out west. Canadian Pacific controlled much of the transcontinental freight transportation in Canada, generating huge profits for the company. Heading westward, CP's trains and Great Lakes fleet carried packaged freight, including textiles, hardware, and other manufactured goods, from Quebec and Ontario to new settlers in western Canada and British Columbia. Eastbound, those trains and ships carried bagged flour to markets in eastern Canada, the United States, and Britain. |
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| One of the five steam-powered donkey winches on Keewatin used to hoist cargo in and out of the cargo hold. |
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| The purser's lobby, located amidships. The boat train conveying passengers to Keewatin would pull up on the dock right next to the entrance to the purser's lobby for convenient embarkation. This lavishly wood-panelled space housed the barbershop, the ship's main staircase, and the purser's office. The door on the left leads to the 'tween deck cargo space, forbidden to passengers. |
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| The barbershop, which was managed by the same barber for 30 years, beginning in 1928-29. The barber was not a Canadian Pacific employee, but rather an independent entrepreneur. In addition to offering haircuts and shaves for $1.25, the barber provided first aid when required, handled passengers' mail, and managed the ship's tuck shop, selling souvenirs, postcards, tobacco, magazines, newspapers, and stamps. A postcard sent from Keewatin was considered a high-class item, given the exclusivity of the luxurious vessel. In addition to being his place of business, the barbershop also served as the barber's stateroom, as seen by the bunk on the left. During the winter months, when Keewatin was not sailing, the barber provided his services at the Hart House student building on the campus of the University of Toronto. |
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| The ornate mahogany double staircase leading up to Main Deck, reminiscent of such grand staircases on other Edwardian-era steamships. |
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| The purser's office, where passengers would check in upon arrival and receive their stateroom keys, being shown to their cabins by a bellhop carrying their baggage. Keewatin's purser was in charge of storing passengers' stateroom keys, money, jewellery, and and other valuables. He would also arrange seating in the dining saloon and cabin assignments for those passengers travelling along who needed to be bunked with a fellow solo passenger. Like the barber, the purser's office doubled as his stateroom. |
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| Outside the purser's office, to the left of the main staircase. A cabinet on the left holds passenger and crew stateroom keys, with the sign to the left of the door indicating the Port McNicoll departure and arrival dates and times for both Keewatin and Assiniboia. In the 1920s, a five-day round trip between Port McNicoll and Port Arthur/Fort William cost as little as $63.50, including berth and meals. |
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| The Main Deck interior lounge, looking aft. In the background, the passageway splits around panel walls concealing the funnel casing. |
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| One of the short passageways leading off the Main Deck lounge to passenger staterooms. The inside staterooms in the foreground were the least expensive cabins aboard Keewatin and resembled sleeping cabins on railway carriages. |
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| The Main Deck lounge provided comfortable spots for passengers to socialise or simply space to stretch one's legs when inclement weather made a walk out on deck impractical. Foul weather, including pelting ice, thick fog, or dangerous storms, was a particular risk in the Upper Great Lakes during early spring or late autumn sailings. |
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| A twin-berth inside stateroom on Main Deck, with a sofa on the right. A small table folds down over the sink. While there were several toilet and bathing facilities for male and female passengers located on Main Deck and Upper Deck, the staterooms were equipped with chamber pots, as seen here. Using the electric buzzers in each stateroom, passengers could summon a bellhop to collect and empty chamber pots. |
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| Another twin-berth inside stateroom. Each stateroom had hot and cold running water, a rare luxury aboard ships of the early 20th century. Inside staterooms were equipped with electric fans for passenger comfort. |
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| The Flower Pot Lounge, a two story promenade spanning Main Deck and Upper Deck in the centre of the ship. The lounge got its name from the potted plants mounted on the cross-beams under the skylight overhead. Canadian Pacific had its own horticultural operation and new plants were installed every time Keewatin arrived in Port McNicoll. |
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| Another two-berth inside stateroom with bunk beds and a sofa. It has been decorated with items from the 1940s. Hanging on the hook over the sofa is one of the blue wool jackets which were worn by the stewards and bellhops attending to the passengers. |
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| Another view of Main Deck, with the wood and brass staircase leading to Upper Deck. Note the windows mounted at the top of the wall panelling, which allowed a degree of air circulation for interior staterooms, given that the ship had no central heating and cooling system. To scam passengers, some unscrupulous bellboys would screw these windows shut while passengers were at dinner; when they returned to their staterooms and wanted some fresh air, they would find their windows would not open and would call on the bellboy for assistance. After the bellboy had 'fixed' the window, the unwitting passengers would tip him. |
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| An inside stateroom made up to look like that of a female passenger in the 1940s. |
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| On Main Deck, the Flower Pot Lounge featured comfortable chairs and sofas, as well as a piano. On rough voyages, passengers suffering from seasickness were often brought to the Flower Pot Lounge, since there was no view of the horizon from here; however, the consommé and crackers they were fed often resulted in them throwing up in the lounge. |
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| An interior stateroom for a couple... |
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| ...and the inside stateroom immediately across the passageway, occupied by the couple's children. |
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| Looking aft from the forward end of Main Deck's Flower Pot Lounge. |
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| This small stewards pantry offered Keewatin passengers the opportunity to purchase a late night snack, after the dining saloon had closed. Options included cold ham, cold turkey, cold beef, tomato, or cheese sandwiches for between 30 and 40 cents, including coffee, tea, or milk. Below the pantry window are wooden seats for bellhops, who were on duty 24 hours a day to respond to summonses from the passengers. |
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| Located at the forward end of Main Deck is a cabin for the ship's three female crew members, all stewardesses. The stewardesses were responsible for changing all of the ship's linens every day, as well as vacuuming, making up the beds, and serving tea in the Ladies Lounge. |
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| One of the crew cabins. Waiters slept six to a cabin, while bellhops slept eight to a cabin. The beds were small and reportedly uncomfortable. |
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| The ship's steam-powered windlass was used to raise and lower the ship's two anchors, each weighing 3,175 kilograms (7,000 pounds). The anchor chain was comprised of links weighing 20 kilograms (45 pounds) each. |
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| The windlass, with anchor chains leading down through the deck. |
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| The forepeak, at the very front of the bow. |
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| Looking forward on Upper Deck from the top of the staircase leading down to the Flower Pot Lounge. |
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| A decorative polished wood banister wraps around the well of the Flower Pot Lounge, below, while sunlight floods through the large skylight spanning the length of this promenade. The more expensive staterooms on this deck all feature exterior windows to give passengers fresh air and natural light. |
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| An outer stateroom on Upper Deck decorated with the personal items of passengers travelling in 1907. Teak was used for the wooden fittings in Keewatin's passenger cabins. |
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| An Upper Deck outer stateroom made up in the style of the 1920s. Although the cabin's size and fittings are similar to the cabins on Main Deck, the window provides a brighter, airier feel. |
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| An Upper Deck stateroom made up in the style of the 1930s, complete with a copy of the September 1931 edition of The Farmer's Wife women's magazine on the sofa. Many of the sofas in twin-berth staterooms could be converted into third berths, if required. |
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| An Upper Deck stateroom made up in the style of the 1950s, with copies of the Halifax Chronicle Herald and the Star Weekly reporting on the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. |
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| An Upper Deck stateroom made up in the style of the early 1960s. Note the electric buzzer mounted on the wall over the bed. Passengers could ring it once to summon the bell boy, twice to have ice water delivered, or three times for a ladder to access an upper bunk (in staterooms with bunk beds). |
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| Looking aft on Upper Deck from outside the Ladies Lounge. Cabins are located on the left and right, with ladies' toilets on the left. |
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| The Ladies Lounge, located at the forward end of Upper Deck, overlooking the ship's bow. It was here that the ship's female passengers could bring their children, have tea, play cards, write postcards, and socialise, or just enjoy the passing scenery as Keewatin sailed through Lake Huron and Lake Superior. The furniture, drapery, and carpets in the Ladies Lounge date from Keewatin's major refit in 1951. |
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| Each of the nooks in the Ladies Lounge has been decorated with items from a different decade of Keewatin's service life, from the 1900s to the 1960s. This one features a women's dress from the 1960s and a copy of the Globe and Mail newspaper reporting the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. |
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| This nook contains a small writing desk, perfect for penning postcards to envious family and friends while enjoying a cup of tea served by Keewatin's attentive stewardesses. |
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| One of the custom-made upholstered chairs in the Ladies Lounge that feature short legs to prevent tipping over in rough weather and to preserve the modesty of women wearing long dresses. |
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| The nooks in the Ladies Lounge, separated by low teak-panelled walls, created semi-private areas in which female passengers could pass the hours in conversation or with card games and tea served from silver tea services and fine china. |
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| The large skylight over the promenade on Upper Deck admits ample natural light for the potted plants installed here, as well as the Flower Pot Lounge on Main Deck, below. |
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| The view of Keewatin's dining saloon, looking aft, from the main entrance off the promenade on Upper Deck. Fine carved oak panelling adorns the walls, while a barrel-vaulted ceiling in the centre is lined by hand-painted glass windows made in the workshops of Murano, Italy. The chairs and tables are bolted to the deck to prevent diners from toppling over in rough weather. |
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| A display case contains a place setting of the Canadian Pacific Railway-branded dishes and silverware used in Keewatin's dining saloon. |
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| Irrespective of what fare they paid, all passengers took their meals in the dining saloon, which featured linen tablecloths and napkins, silverware, china, and floral arrangements. The waiters wore blue serge jackets with brass buttons. To keep dishes from sliding on the table during rough weather, the waiters ingeniously dampened the tablecloths with water; the adhesion and surface tension of the wet tablecloth created a weak bond with the dishes, preventing them from moving. |
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| An original Keewatin luncheon menu from the period 1930-38, when Francis James Davis served as captain. On the left are the distances between the various legs of the journey between Port McNicoll and Port Arthur/Fort William, totalling 542 miles (872 kilometres). Given the popularity of Keewatin menus as mementos, guests were advised that a souvenir copy of the menu card and an envelope ready for mailing could be obtained upon request to the Chief Steward. In addition to appetisers, soups, salads, and desserts, diners could choose such main dishes as fried fillet of trout, grilled lamb chops, lobster patties, macaroni and cheese, breaded veal cutlets, and various cold meats. |
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| An original dinner menu from the period 1957-1965, when Alexander Campbell served as Keewatin's last captain. The menu lists on the left side the ship's specifications, the names of the senior officers, and statistics on the size, area, and height above sea level of the five Great Lakes. The right side of the menu lists the wide selection of items guests could order, including poached British Columbia salmon in egg sauce, boiled corned beef with cabbage, roast lamb with mint sauce, and prime ribs of beef with horseradish as the main courses. Those with room for dessert could enjoy baked sago pudding with cream sauce, deep apple pie, fresh fruit, assorted cakes, and various cheeses. In addition to these lavish meals, passengers could enjoy bouillon served between 10:00 and 10:30 am and afternoon tea in the ballroom between 4:00 and 4:30 pm, while those with a late night appetite could order a 'night lunch' delivered to their stateroom by a bell boy. |
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| A large mirror and wood buffet dominate the centre rear wall of the dining saloon. The dining saloon wraps around three sides of the ship's funnel casing, which is effectively concealed behind the oak panelling. |
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| Meals for up to 288 passengers were served in two sittings in the dining saloon. Each of the waiters served a table of six and a table of two during each sitting. Waiters were required to memorise the meal orders, being forbidden from writing them down, and were also not permitted to rest their large serving trays on their shoulders. |
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| Looking forward from the starboard side of the dining saloon before proceeding into the galley. |
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| Aft of the dining saloon is the galley, where meals were cooked and plated. As part of the luxury service afforded to passengers, dishes were heated inside a warming drawer to ensure that meals arrived at the table still hot. The large white cabinet is stocked with original Canadian Pacific Railway dishes left aboard Keewatin upon her retirement. |
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| An iron steam presssure cooker manufactured by the McClary Manufacturing Company of London, Ontario, which produced stoves, kitchenware, and agricultural implements between the 1852 and 1927. |
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| The silverware cleaning station and original Keewatin silverware used to serve passengers in the dining saloon. The ship's waiters were held responsible for the silverware used on the tables for which they were responsible and were required to pay out of pocket for any items that went missing. As such, the waiter paid a galley dishwasher known as the 'Silver King' 25 cents per table service to keep the silverware items from mysteriously disappearing. |
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| The crew mess, where the ship's waiters, cooks, stewards, and bellhops could eat a quick meal while off duty. |
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| The galley features much of the original equipment used when the ship was in service and left aboard when Keewatin was retired. |
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| The ship's original, coal-fired iron stove, located on the port side of the galley. |
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| A steam table used to keep hot food warm and ready for serving. |
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| The large bin used to store coal to heat the galley stove. The chunks of coal on display are some of the ship's original coal, left onboard after the ship retired from service in 1965. |
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| The bakery, where the ship's pastry chef prepared bread, rolls, cookies, pastries, cakes, and pies. |
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| The refrigerated storage room off the galley was used to store perishable items, like fruit, vegetables, and meat, which was butchered on the large wooden block in the centre. Note the thick, heavy wooden door leading from the galley. |
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| The ballroom at the aft end of Upper Deck. As originally built, this part of Keewatin was an open-air deck called the Veranda Café, where passengers could take in the fresh air while drinking coffee. However, after the First World War, when Keewatin increasingly focused on pleasure cruises, more indoor public space was deemed necessary. As such, in 1928 the open deck was enclosed during a refit at Midland Shipyards, creating this room. The large windows allowed passengers to enjoy the passing scenery in comfort and to socialise late into the evening. |
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| A record player and radio occupy one corner of the ballroom. The roof of the ballroom was originally made of pressed tin, but this created disturbing echoes and a layer of cork was later applied to absorb and dampen noise. |
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| Musical instruments are displayed in another corner of the ballroom, where passengers could dance to live music during Keewatin's 2.5-day cruises between Port McNicoll and Port Arthur/Fort William. The lounge's polished oak deck is original. |
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| The ballroom's location at the aft end of the ship ensured that noise from late-night parties did not disturb sleeping passengers in cabins located forward, while cigarette smoke was able to conveniently waft out the rear doors and over the stern. |
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| The forward part of the ballroom. Passengers could enjoy a drink between noon and midnight on weekdays and between noon and 11:30 pm on Saturdays (except when in port). Minors under 21 years of age were not permitted in the lounge and drinks were not available for purchase on Sundays. |
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| The walls of the lounge are decorated with many fine, hand-carved oak panels and trim. Note the clock over the credenza: as with all of the clocks aboard, it is permanently set at 9:15 am, commemorating the exact time when Keewatin's engines were ordered stopped after the ship's final passenger voyage ended at Port McNicoll on 29 November 1965. |
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| The ballroom's lounge provided an intimate space for enjoying a drink, reading, or conversation. Large picture windows provided plenty of natural light and picturesque views of the Great Lakes. |
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| After descending a staircase from the ballroom back to Main Deck, the tour continues past several of the large deluxe outside staterooms located at the aft end of this deck. This stateroom has been used to display artefacts, including a life ring, a deck game board, and a wooden deckchair. To pass the time, passengers could play shuffleboard, a ring-toss game called quoits, and table tennis on the open-air Boat Deck atop the ship. |
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| One of the wood-panelled deluxe outside double staterooms that commanded the highest fares. Of the 108 staterooms aboard Keewatin, only seven, including this one, featured private private bathrooms. |
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| Another deluxe outside double stateroom with private bathroom. |
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| Looking forward in the passageway on the starboard side at the ship's aft end. Men's and ladies' bathrooms further along on the left are marked by illuminated green signs. |
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| The Chief Steward's cabin. |
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| Another of the large, luxuriously-appointed deluxe outside staterooms at the aft end of Main Deck. |
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| The ensuite bathroom in one of the deluxe staterooms, featuring sink, toilet, and bathtub with shower. Only seven staterooms had such private facilities. |
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| Stateroom 166, a deluxe outside stateroom with private ensuite bathroom on the starboard side. Note the fine Edwardian woodwork and panelling, especially over the bed. |
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| For the 30-minute SS Keewatin Engine Room Experience tour, visitors descend into one of the ship's spacious cargo holds, now used as workshops and museum storage. |
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| During Keewatin's active service life on the Great Lakes, the three cargo holds carried manufactured goods destined for western Canada, as well as the worldly possessions of immigrants heading west to settle the rich farmland. Eastbound, the holds would largely be loaded with general cargo and bagged flour to supply the cities in eastern Canada, the United States, and Britain. |
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| A tour guide demonstrates the workings of Keewatin's propulsion system using a moving scale model. |
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| One of the ship's two coal bunkers, which still contains some of the coal left aboard when Keewatin was taken out of service on 29 November 1965. The bunkers held a combined total of 220 tons of coal, 120 tons in one bunker and 100 tons in the other. Keewatin burned 20 tons of coal per day for her two-and-a-half day, 872.3-kilometre (542-mile) voyage between Port McNicoll and Port Arthur/Fort William (now Thunder Bay). |
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| Two of Keewatin's coal-fired, hand-stoked Scotch fire-tube boilers, made by the same company that manufactured boilers for RMS Titanic. Keewatin originally had four such boilers, but the other two were removed after the ship was retired from service in order to keep within the draught limit of the Michigan marina where the ship resided from 1967 to 2012. This boiler, on the starboard side, has been sectioned to show visitors the interior construction. Each boiler measures 4.27 metres (14 feet) in length, with a diameter of 3.35 metres (11 feet). The boilers each contained three furnaces (for a total of 12), each measuring 1.17 metres (3 feet, 10 inches) in diameter. Coal fires stoked in the furnaces fed hot flue gases through a series of horizontal tubes, each measuring 2.23 metres (7 feet 4 inches) in length by 8.26 centimetres (3.25 inches) in diameter; the hot tubes heated the water in the boiler, creating steam at a pressure of 220 pounds per square inch which was fed to the ship's engine. The boiler room crew comprised six firemen, working two per shift on four-hour shifts. Between eight and 12 shovelfuls of coal were fed into the boilers every 20 minutes to maintain steam pressure. The residual ash left behind by the burned coal was shovelled out of the boiler's firebox and discharged into the lake. Three water tenders, working one per shift on four-hour shifts, maintained the boilers' water supply to ensure the boiler tubes were always covered by water, thereby avoiding overheating and cracking. |
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| Moving aft, the cavernous engine room is dominated by the single enormous quadruple-expansion reciprocating steam engine, which stood three storeys high and generated 3,300 horsepower from the steam produced by the ship's four boilers. |
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| Brass gauges in the engine room for displaying boiler pressure and pressures in the High Pressure Receiver and second Medium Pressure Receiver. Another set of gauges measured pressure in the first Medium Pressure Receiver and the Low Pressure Receiver. In a quadruple-expansion steam engine, high-pressure steam was passed through four different cylinders in succession to generate power, increasing efficiency by extracting more energy from the steam with each expansion. Steam entered the smallest, high-pressure cylinder first and proceeded through the first and second medium-pressure cylinders and finally the low pressure cylinder. |
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| The engine room telegraph, which showed speed orders communicated from Keewatin's bridge, accompanied by a clanging bell to notify the crew over the noise of the engine. In an era before automated engine control from a ship's bridge, orders for changes in speed or propeller direction (forward or reverse) needed to be communicated via telegraph or voice pipe. It took five minutes to reverse Keewatin's engine. |
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| A close-up view of the piston rods connected to the crankshaft in Keewatin's quadruple-expansion steam engine. Steam from the boilers entered the engine's cylinder heads to drive the pistons up and down, turning the crankshaft. Steam exiting the engine was condensed into water, filtered to remove oil and debris, and fed back to the boiler for re-heating into steam. |
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| A closer view of the piston rods connecting the engine's low-pressure cylinder to the crankshaft. |
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| The ship's electrical switchboard. In addition to powering the propulsion engines, steam produced by the boilers also fed smaller steam engines that generated shipboard electrical power. |
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| The wheel controlling the flow of steam into the engine, with a sign noting the number of bells rung on the engine room telegraph and their corresponding speed orders from the bridge crew. |
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| The port side of the engine room, accessible as part of the guided tour. Keewatin had one of the most advanced coal-fired engines of the early 20th century, similar to the engines used aboard Titanic; however, while Keewatin had four boilers to generate steam power, Titanic was fitted with 29. |
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| A workbench and storage for tools and spare parts on the port side of Keewatin's engine room. |
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| Various tools, including very large wrenches, used by the engine room crew to maintain the ship's machinery. |
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| The single propeller shaft driven by the ending passes through the hull and is connected to a propeller measuring more than 5 metres (16 feet) in diameter. The horseshoe thrust bearing (grey with copper valves on top) takes the force of the forward motion created by the propeller and applies it to the hull. |
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| A closer look at the propeller shaft exiting the hull at the stern. With no gearing, the engine drove the propeller at the relatively modest speed of 120 rotations per minute to provide efficient power and a cruising speed of 14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph). |
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| A final look at SS Keewatin, berthed at Kingston, Ontario's Great Lakes Museum, 18 August 2025. |