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e-3034 (Culture and heritage)
- Keywords
- Maritime heritage
- Port McNicoll
- S.S. Keewatin
E-petition
Initiated by Daniel Travers from Port McNicoll, Ontario
Original language of petition: English
Petition to the Government of Canada
Whereas:
- The SS Keewatin is the only remaining passenger steam vessel of the RMS Titanic era still floating and available for public tours, interpretation and witnessing, in-person, the grandeur and relevance of her story;
- The Canadian Pacific Railway operated SS Keewatin as part of their Great Lakes Steamship fleet between Port McNicoll and Port Arthur (now Thunder Bay), Ontario, from 1912 to 1965;
- The vessel’s current owner purchased and brought it back to Port McNicoll in 2012 to become a village destination and attraction, prompting hundreds of volunteers under the direction of The R.J. and Diane Peterson Keewatin Foundation (the Foundation) to spend the last eight years staffing the vessel, restoring her interior and conducting tens of thousands of public tours; and
- The owner has recently announced the vessel will be moved to Kingston, Ontario.
We, the undersigned, Residents of Simcoe County, call upon the Government of Canada to reject the application by the Marine Museum of the Great Lakes at Kingston and Skyline Investments Inc. that would remove the SS Keewatin from her rightful place in Port McNicoll, and instead, work with the volunteers and the Foundation to ensure she remains in Port McNicoll to tell her story and that of the immense role she and her sister steamships played in the settlement of Canada in the late 19th and early 20th century and in the passenger steamship era on the Great Lakes.
