THUNDER BAY – Sixty years after the Alexander Henry was first christened, the former icebreaker officially began its new life at its old home.
The ship, which had been a Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker for nearly 30 years after it was built in 1958 at the Port Arthur Shipyard, was officially rededicated on Wednesday to serve as a piece of living history at the Pool Six site on the city’s waterfront.
Annie Kolisnyk spent nine years working on the ship, serving as a cook for its 30 crew members. The 94-year-old was tasked with breaking the ceremonial champagne bottle over the ship’s anchor.
“I just looked at it and I said it was good to have you home,” she said. “It was my home for 12 months of the year. I never saw what the summers were here in Thunder Bay because we were on the East Coast. I loved every minute of it.”
The decommissioned icebreaker had operated as a bed and breakfast in Kingston following its retirement in 1985. The ship ended up becoming displaced a few years ago with the sale of the Marine Museum of the Great Lakes property.
With sinking the ship a possible option, local efforts began to try bring it back to Thunder Bay.
The Lakehead Transportation Museum was successfully able to secure funding from both the Thunder Bay and Kingston city councils for the tow across the Great Lakes, and was able to convince the city to showcase the ship at the waterfront.
For Charlie Brown, the group’s president, this was a day that was a long time coming.
“It was a dream, obviously. Some people said it was a pipe dream but here’s the pipe standing behind me,” Brown said.
“We just took it one day at a time. Every obstacle, we just looked at it at a very calm, collected way and how we can get around it. It was one hurdle, then another hurdle, then eventually we got her here and here she is.”
The ship arrived back in the city nearly one year ago, where it was temporarily moored at a private iron ore dock before being relocated to the Pool Six site in November.
It was opened to the public following the rededication ceremony. Brown said it took a lot of work in the final stages to get the ship ready.
“During the cold weather we had a lot of problems just putting paint inside and everything else. We didn’t have our electricity hooked up,” Brown said. “But in the last few weeks we’ve just been scrambling to do site preparation and our final inspections.”
The Alexander Henry had been a mainstay on the Lake Superior horizon, tasked every spring with opening up the harbour.
“I have the memories of sailing all the way from the coast, seeing part of the country and going through Lake Superior. It’s a vicious lake, all the storms,” Kolisnyk said. “But I enjoyed it.”
Peter Tracz, who grew up in Thunder Bay but now lives in Hamilton, came down with some family members during a visit home.
“I remember as a child going down to the waterfront in the winter and watching it break the ice. It’s heartwarming to come here and see it again,” Tracz said.
“You’d look across the expansive white in the harbour and see this little red and white thing going back and forth, sometimes pumping the ice a little bit. It was just amazing to watch and in the stillness you saw something breaking a path.”
