Last issue, we mentioned that ERINDALE had been busy in late autumn, hauling coal from Toronto's mothballed Hearn Generating Plant to Lakeview Plant, a few miles west of Toronto. Her contract called for thirty such trips, the remainder of which will be finished in the spring. ERINDALE is now in winter quarters at Windsor along with SILVERDALE, which spent her autumn carrying coal from Windsor to the Lambton Generating Plant at Courtright, Ontario.

The new owners of the former U.S. Navy minesweeper RHEA, which latterly served as a training ship at Port Stanley, Ontario, are identified as Peter Cash (the harbourmaster at Oshawa) and Victor Vetesse (a Toronto trucker). They have not yet decided what to do with RHEA, but there is a possibility that she may wind up back in the U.S. as an historical display in view of her involvement in the Japanese surrender at Tokyo in 1945.

We are given to understand that litigation has resulted from the collision, during inclement weather, of the Great Lakes Towing Company tug ARKANSAS and the Gaelic Tug Boat Company's NEWCASTLE on the Maumee River at Toledo on October 23rd. NEWCASTLE suffered considerable damage below the waterline and was only kept afloat through the efforts of crewmen who used mattresses to stem the influx of water until the tug could reach shore.

The Western Metals Corp., on December 5th, began cutting on the former tinstack steamer JOHN HULST at its Kam River premises at Thunder Bay. The HULST had arrived on November 23 in tow from Duluth, and HORACE JOHNSON followed on November 30. As of early December, Western Metals also had at its yard the last remains of D. B. WELDON, which is cut right down to her tank top, and LIONEL PARSONS, which is intact forward but has her stern cut off. The company will take delivery of three more U.S. Steel boats, B. F. AFFLECK, JOSHUA A. HATFIELD and AUGUST ZIESING, in the spring of 1984.

Two C.S.L. steamers have recently encountered unloading boom problems. STADACONA was loading grain at Thunder Bay this autumn when her boom buckled. She was then laid up with only a partial load aboard. TARANTAU is also at the Lakehead with boom difficulties; she had earlier taken a load of ore from Marquette to the Algoma plant at the Soo, and had to be unloaded with shore equipment as she could not unload with her own gear.

The extremely cold weather experienced by the Toronto area during Christmas week caused the sudden formation of thick ice on the harbour, and resulted in the cessation of Island ferry service because the winter ferry, the carferry ONGIARA, was unable to keep a path open through the 18-inch ice. By the end of the year, the Metro Parks and Property Dept. announced that its $42-million recreational facilities expansion programme would include "a $5-million, 1,000-passenger ice-breaking ferry" for Island service. We have been hearing talk of such a boat for many years now, and wonder whether we are ever going to see her. There has been no dependable winter ferry service to the Island since the retirement years ago of the steam tugs that used to serve the route.

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