OWEN SOUND—After a slight delay to the start of the Chi-Cheemaun’s sailing season, the Owen Sound Transportation Company (OSTC) saw only a day-late start to the ferry’s first sailing which took place on Saturday, May 3. The delay came about when high winds late Monday night, April 28-29, pushed ice across Georgian Bay and impeded the route the ferry takes from its winter berth in Owen Sound to its Tobermory sailing terminus.
Susan Schrempf, OSTC CEO and president, told The Expositor that on Friday, May 2 the Canadian Coast Guard sent a helicopter from Parry Sound on an ice reconnaissance mission along the Bruce Peninsula from Owen Sound north to Cove Island.
“We needed to know if there was an opening, but even the Coast Guard radar images could not show this,” she said, explaining that Environment Canada’s ice report could not give them the information needed to sail either. “Knowing there wasn’t an icebreaker anywhere near, the Coast Guard sent a helicopter from Parry Sound. We now know where the ice would be found.”
Ms. Schrempf said the remaining ice is found largely near Cape Croker and Lions Head, so the Chi-Cheemaun had to make her annual journey from Owen Sound a little further east than usual. The southwest wind that blows is also helping to push the ice away from the ferry route.
“And the ice is rotten and there’s less of it,” she added.
The Chi-Cheemaun’s first sailing of the year took place at 1:30 pm from Tobermory, arriving at South Baymouth at 3:30 pm. A video of the big canoe’s triumphant return to Manitoulin can be found on The Expositor’s Facebook page, which had garnered over 16,000 views by press time Monday.
The front page headline in the April 30 edition of The Manitoulin Expositor was accurate as of press time on Monday, April 28, but it was that very night that high winds pushed ice across Georgian Bay from the Parry Sound side to the Owen Sound-Tobermory side.
The Expositor learned last Tuesday afternoon of the sailing delay caused by Mother Nature’s wind but by that time, the paper had been printed.
The Chi-Cheemaun had her first month of sailing 40 years ago this fall, in 1974, and this was the first time the ferry’s season opening has been delayed by ice conditions, a remnant of the long and cold winter just past.
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