Читать книгу Toronto Sketches 12 - Mike Filey - Страница 8

June 3, 2012

During the summers of long ago, the most popular way to get away from the stifling heat of the big city was to take a day trip on one of the many passenger steamers that were moored at the foot of Bay or Yonge streets. After boarding one of the ships with such mysterious-sounding names as Corona, Cibola, Chippewa, or Cayuga, it wasn’t long before you were in another world enjoying the cool Lake Ontario breezes as you and your fellow travellers headed for the Niagara River ports at Niagara-on-the-Lake or Queenston, or perhaps even the foreign port on the other side of the river at Lewiston in New York State.

But, as someone once said, all good things must come to an end. In the case of these waterfront icons it was due to the arrival of the automobile, and more specifically to the new superhighways like the Queen Elizabeth Way, which allowed families to drive using their own timetables to and from Niagara Falls.

That’s not to say that a serious attempt wasn’t made to retain at least one of the vessels. Cayuga had entered service in 1907 and continued her run to and from the Niagara River ports for a total of forty-four years. Citing various reasons, including the need for expensive safety upgrades brought on by the tragic fire that destroyed the upper lakes steamer SS Noronic here in Toronto Harbour in the fall of 1949, her owner, Canada Steamship Line, quietly announced that Cayuga would not operate in 1952 and would be offered for sale or simply scrapped.

Toronto’s skyline circa 1950. The tall office building is the Bank of Commerce (now Commerce Court North) on King Street just west of Yonge. Also visible is the Royal York Hotel before its 1959 addition. North and west of it is the stately Canada Life Building on University Avenue without its landmark weather beacon. In the middle of the view is the diminutive but dignified Toronto Harbour Commission Building and behind it the Postal Delivery Building, the south and east facades of which form part of today’s Air Canada Centre. Moored at the Toronto Ferry Docks is the 1910 Trillium (restored in 1975) and to the extreme right is SS Cayuga, arguably the most popular of the Port of Toronto’s several Lake Ontario passenger steamers.

The Great Lakes passenger steamer SS Cayuga as the popular vessel appeared on a circa-1920 souvenir postcard.

But enough people thought that Cayuga should continue to operate, which eventually resulted in the vessel being purchased, refitted, and returned to cross-lake service in time for the 1954 season. But it just wasn’t to be. In 1957, the new company announced that it was all over. Cayuga was tied up alongside the dock wall near where Harbourfront Centre is located today and was slowly, methodically cut into little pieces. Lake Ontario passenger boat travel had truly come to an end.