Monday, March 29, 2010

Ships of Canada - 1978 14c

Date of Issue: November 15, 1978
Scott #: 776 - 779

These are the fourth and last in the series - Ships of Canada, depicted as ice vessels.

Chief Justice Robinson - Built in 1842 as a wooden side-wheel steamboat, named after Sir John Beverley Robinson (1791-1863), who became a Chief Justice and Speaker of the Canadian Legislative Council in 1829. She was designed with an ingenious form of hull, characterized by a plough-shaped ram, when sailing in ice would give the ice an upward thrust, then throw it outward on each side of the ram. She was not an icebreaker in modern terms. She was an very comfortable passenger vessel, used in a six-day service between Toronto and Niagara.

St. Roch - She was special built for the Arctic regions as a supply and detachment ship. Her diesel engine provided also heat for the well-insulated accommodation. Horizontal and vertical beams in the main hold supported the sides of the ship from the strength of the ice. Her hull was made of Douglas fir, sheated with Australian ironwood. In 1940 when Canada was at war she was refitted, and she sailed out in June under command of Sergeant Henry Larsen that year from Vancouver for a voyage through the mostly uncharted Northwest Passage to Halifax.

Northern Light - Built in 1876 as a wooden hulled ferry-icebreaker for the ferry service between Georgetown and Pictou on the Northumberland Strait. When Prince Edwards Island was brought in to Canada, the terms or agreement implied a year round ferry service. Built of wood it was thought that ice would not puncture the wood, also the hull was very rounded, and the weight of the vessel would break the ice. She was a odd looking craft. With a roman nose rather than a ram.

Labrador - Built during 1948 - 1953, and commissioned in 1954, as an icebreaker by Mil Tracy Marine Industries at Sorel, Canada for the Canadian Ministry of Transport. She was the first warship, which voyage to negotiate the Northwest Passage across the top of the continent; she visited homeward bound San Francisco, Panama City and Grenada. In 1958 due to manpower shortage, the Navy withdrew from the Arctic, and the LABRADOR was transferred to the Coast Guard. The Labrador served with the coast Guard for 29 years.

Text Source: Ships of Canada by Thomas Appleton, and shipstamps.co.uk

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