D7

Rod Allen
City Views

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On a trip to Chicago I took a wander down to the shores of Lake Michigan, where I met a certain lady who looms large in recollections of the distant days of my wayward youth.

Naturally I ran straight back to the hotel and waited for Wife No. 1 to come out from a meeting so I could tell her all about it.

Fortunately WN-1 (who has been working out) didn't feel threatened at all and why should she?

The old girlfriend weighs in at 7,000 tonnes.

Nonetheless the Abegweit still has a hold on me, as she would with any who are from down my way.

All Cape Tormentiners and many other Canadians will remember this beautiful old ice-breaking ferry which plied the waters of Northumberland Strait between the Cape and Borden, P.E.I. from 1947 until 1983, when she was decommissioned and sold to the Columbia Yacht Club in Chicago.

She remains there to this day and although only members and guests are permitted aboard, "the Abbey" was empty the day I visited, save for a couple of workers who didn't mind if I took a self-guided tour.

'Self-guided' was not a problem; turned out I hadn't forgotten the "secret" passageways used by all us young "wharf rats" of the Cape back in the day. Sneaking aboard the Abbey for a free crossing to the Island was a frequent summertime entertainment for the rats.

The once-mighty vessel has been tied up at this wharf for 26 years so as one might expect the Abegweit -- it's an old Mi'kmaq named for the Island which means "Cradle on the Waves" -- won't be going to sea again.

The first car deck is badly warped, the huge engine room has been dismantled and even fresh water will have its rusty way on a hull over that many years.

The upper decks have changed as well but not too much for the worse.

There's an elevator now to move members around and at least some of the opulent brass and mahogany details inside the upper passenger deck have been painted over.

However some of it, particularly around the circular prospect that looks down on the lower passenger deck and leading into the galley (still a poshly appointed restaurant) is still exposed and someone obviously applies a polishing rag with respectful and loving vigour.

It was a strange feeling to walk past the "Purser's Office" -- the sign is still there -- and feel the same guilty thrill I felt as a young lad every time I walked by the ferry's official ticket-taker on one of our illicit trips.

No doubt he knew all about our crimes but since most of the crew were Islanders, New Brunswickers and Newfoundlanders who'd all done the same thing, we somehow never got collared.

Up on the top deck there are wooden chairs now; no need for the fixed metal benches where we used to mingle with the tourists; this is where Alex Colville produced the famous painting of his wife peering through a pair of binoculars.

Out on the wharf there's a reasonably executed history of the Abegweit posted on a sign, detailing her birth in Sorel, Quebec, and her mastery over the often vicious rafting ice of the strait in winter.

At 372 feet she was the largest and heaviest all-welded ship in the history of Canadian ship-building in her day, and though she sometimes took many hours to churn her way through floes that sometimes stacked to 15 or 20 feet she was never stuck fast in all her years.

There's a paragraph dedicated also to the Abbey's finest moment in the early spring of 1963, when Capt. Gideon Kean rescued 13-year-old Kenny Blacquiere.

A dyed-in-the-wool wharf rat, he'd been out jumping slob ice with his buds near Jourimain Island (now Cape Jourimain) when the floe he was on cut adrift and headed down-strait to the open sea.

Capt. Kean, a Newfoundlander and the service's finest mariner, canceled the rest of day's schedule and went out looking for him.

Young Kenny must have been some glad to see the Abbey's powerful searchlights cutting through the blackest of winter nights and signaling his imminent rescue.

I knew Capt. Kean; a fine man who has since passed on, though some of his descendants remain in the area and are as fine a people as was their father.

* City Views appears daily, written by various members of our staff. Rod Allen is an assistant managing editor with The Times & Transcript. His column appears every Thursday.