Russel Brothers Limited OWEN SOUND, ONTARIO Steelcraft Boat Builders
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| Pijitic
Canadian List of Shipping 1956: Pijitic [C.178681] registered at Port Arthur; built at Owen Sound in 1946. 33'3 x 1l' x 5'4; 18 g.t.; 17 n.t.; 130 hp. Owned by Marathon Corporation of Canada Ltd., Toronto. Canadian List of Shipping 1970: Steel tender Pijitic [C.178681] registered at Goderich. Built at Owen Sound in 1946. 33'; 18 g.t. Canadian List of Shipping 1997: Owned by Doug Graham, Owen Sound, Ontario. Tranport Canada List 2003: Owned by Doug Graham, Owen Sound, Ontario. Design #284 blueprints
The PIJITIC was owned by Dr. Douglas Whitesides of Owen Sound's Mackinnon Phillips Hospital. Dr. Whitesides sold her to Doug Graham of Owen Sound, who owned her as late as 1992, when it was still operational. - Don Capel, OSMRM 1992. Pijitic was bought in 2000 by John MacFarlane. John notes (July10, 2018): "I brought it down from Owen Sound in 2000. I lived on it in Oshawa until 2002 when I sold it to the guy who brought it up to Lake Erie. I got it pretty much intact but ended up stripping out the back bunks and much of the center cabin because it was rotted. I redid the cabin sole in the back and changed the shape of the port lights, plated over the bottom with 1/8� steel as the original was getting thin in spots, plus was rotted below the black water tank.
I basically lived up in the vee berth and my kids would stay with me there at times. I have pictures but not on this computer.
When I sold it I just wanted it gone so sold it pretty cheap, basically scrap weight, so I did keep a few things off of it including the docs for the engine, the ships bell and sternboard which interestingly gives its port of registration as Goderich." Details for registered vessel PIJITIC (O.N. 178681)
This vessel is no longer registered in Canada. Date of closing: 2005-12-20. |
S.B. notes (Dec. 6, 2017) - Pijitic is a native word, an older name for "Pic", referring to a River near Marathon Ontario. This PDF "History of the Pic River Area" prepared for the Marathon Corporation in Nov. 1946, shows the original version of "Pic river" was "Pijitic river". Which is where our Pijitic got her name!
http://nfmcforestry.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/History-of-the-Ric-River-Area.pdf
Photos taken July 29, 1951 in Marathon, courtesy Marathon & District Historical Society.
Pijitic photos courtesy of Marathon and District Historical Society, supplied by Leigh Cossey Dec. 2nd, 2017. Leigh comments: "These pictures are at the mill site in Marathon. She was lifted in and out with the dock crane used for loading pulp bales onto the lake freighter D. C. Everest. Pijitic's purpose was to wine and dine brass and assorted dignitaries for the Marathon Paper Corporation of Canada Ltd., (Port Arthur) and take them on fishing trips." Photos taken by Glenn Fromme-Douglas, in Sept. 1952 and May 1953 at Marathon Ontario.
Colourized versions of the photos:
Pijitic in Owen Sound, early spring. Note the crowd on deck on the ferry MS Chi-Cheemaun. Photo courtesy James Harrison.
Rick Stout of Owen Sound notes (Feb. 2006): the Pijitic was a very heavy old boat and had a Chrysler Straight 8 Royal engine. I knew the boat as well as I know my own. As a kid growing up at the yacht club, it was there most of my childhood. Dr. Doug Whitesides brought it into the yacht club in the mid 60's. Doug Graham bought it in July of 1978. At 18, I was noted as being a great boat handler. Doug Graham was a good friend and asked me to run the Pijitic every time he wanted to go for a ride. Doug and Mary Graham, are still in town on 15th street west, and Pijitic was in the GYC (Georgian Yacht Club) in Owen Sound until 2000. SB notes: Rick has the original Chrysler Straight 8 engine from the Russel built 30' tender boat Carol Lynn (which was escorting the Translake III drilling rig when it capsized) in his dad's wooden excursion boat Rayn-Bow II. Rick's dad got the engine from the boat at the GYC Owen Sound, from Colin Glen.
Dec. 4th, 2017: Rick Stout comments "That rubber tire ash tray was on the Pijitic as long as I could remember, and it was still there when the boat left Owen Sound in 2000." (middle row, left).
Rick continues (Jan. 2019): "She was registered in Port Arthur in these pictures but was re-registered in Goderich when Doctor Doug Whitesides from McKinnon-Phillips Hospital owned her and bought her back to Owen Sound in about 1967. This is when I got to know the boat. She hauled out of the water right next to my father's on John Hick's marine railway until 1973 when E.C.King bought a larger 45 ton crane that could lift the Pijitic and my dad's boat.
Now Doug Whitesides once told me that she had been lifted with a crane in Goderich and they dropped her apparently doing damage to her forward windows. Doug Graham who had owned a plywood cruiser that had rotted out always wanted to buy the Pijitic. Graham's thoughts were the that the Pijitic's bottom and hull was built from about 3/8 steel and that was the boat he wanted because she'd never rust out in his life time. He got this idea after seeing a plate on her transom that was actually about 3/8 steel.
Many people including John Hicks who was once a welder at Russels told Graham the hull plating was 3/16 (which really meant no difference) but he just had to have the Pijitic and in 1978 he finally got his wish. Doug Whitesides was finally ready to part with the Pijitic after years of enjoyment with her. After buying her, Graham told everyone for years that the bottom of "The Ol Pijitic" was 3/8 of an inch thick and that's why she's so heavy. "If he ever hit the rocks she'd just bounce over them".
After owning her for about 10 years we were all getting our boats ready in the spring when Doug came down the dock fit to be tied. I asked what was wrong. Seems Doug had just put the paint brush through the bottom of the hull. I had to chuckle and make a joke about the 3/8 bottom. He didn't find it amusing! That's when he found out her original hull was likely 3/16 but now was a lot thinner. Within a few days from launch, Graham got a welder down to look at the boat, but the welder couldn't find enough good steel around the hole to weld on a patch.
Doug ended up using sheet metal screws, tar and a piece of stove pipe to patch the hole. He did get a plate welded in the following winter but the Pijitic was never used by Graham after that and it sat at the dock every season for about five more years before being sold and trucked to Lake Erie area. These pictures on the Russels site were the last ever seen of the Pijitic." |
Port Stanley, ON Oct. 2003.
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RBF notes: Port Stanley, ON April 4th, 2004.
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Jim McGill is the current owner of PIJITIC (Oct. 1, 2019). Jim comments: "I have a 1947 russel tug which I knew as a child. Unusual design, more of a trawler. Pulled a barge to logging camps on the north shore, one of two. It's called the Pijitic. Hull has been sandblasted and painted in and out, new windows, interior is gutted to the frames, no power."
The boat has been sitting in his barn, on a river south of Sarnia for several years. Jim (now 72) grew up in Owen Sound and knew the boat from the local marina when it was owned by Dr. Doug Whitesides. He happened across it in a farmer's field several years ago, really admired the boat's shape and bought it. It had been in Port Dover, then Port Stanley before that. His priority right now is restoring another boat. He has stripped and gutted the interior down to the hull, painted the inside, slightly modified the roof line, and painted the exterior white and blue. He says the hull is in great shape still and just awaiting an interior rebuild.
For more Russel exhibits visit Owen Sound Marine & Rail Museum 1165 1st Ave West, Owen Sound, ON N4K 4K8
(519) 371-3333  http://marinerail.com |
