Activity around the Keewatin

The Keewatin lifeboats.

The Keewatin closed down to public tours last weekend as the 104-year-old ship gets ready for a move to Port McNicoll in Canada in June, but a few folks got a guided tour earlier this week.

Douglas Elementary School students got to walk the decks of the Great Lakes steamship one more time.

Besides the work on the ship itself, a dredging spoils area just south of the parking lot is coming along. Plans are to put the dredging material from around the ship into that spot before the ship is rotated 180 degrees in preparation to be pulled out of the harbor.

R.J. Peterson, who sold the vessel to Skyline International Development Inc., said the owners are looking at a dry dock to help raise the ship out of the water so they won’t have to dredge as much material to get the ship to Lake Michigan.

Skyline will donate it to the R.J. and Diane Peterson Great Lakes and S.S. Keewatin Foundation, which will operate and maintain the vessel as a  museum.

The Keewatin, built in 1907, will be moored in a park in Port McNicoll, its home port when it carried cargo and passengers for the Canadian Pacific Railway. The park will feature a replica of the town’s original train station and gardens.





 The ship's lifeboats are stacked in the parking lot outside the Keewatin and you can really see what desperate shape they are in. Peterson earlier said the lifeboats are heading out to be restored.