After a long night in the city council chamber, members of the Transportation Museum of Thunder Bay left deflated after councillors voted to entirely demolish the James Whalen Tug.
The decision will be back in front of council next week for ratification, and Dave Muir, a museum board member, said they have one week to “save the Whalen.”
The tug was pulled from the depths of the Kaministiquia River in September of 2022 by a massive heavy-lift Derrick barge commissioned from southern Ontario. The tug was deposited on the river shoreline on private property near the James Street Swing Bridge.
After months of deliberation on salvaging the tug, dismantling it for preservation of parts or demolishing the entire vessel, the museum held out hope that they could salvage the deck upwards from the tug’s water line.
Muir said the museum garnered great support from several companies and skilled tradespeople who would dismantle the vessel and transport the upper section to the museum site at Pool Six.
“I have volunteer welders, millwrights, iron workers and tin smiths willing to donate their time to reassemble the Whalen,” Muir said. “I have got a property owner who has a 400-ton barge and has access to two tugs to bring the larger pieces from the Whalen’s resting site to the museum site. I’ve got crane companies and operators and personal guarantees of whatever they can do to help us.”
He added that although he didn’t have a chance to present these details to council during his deputation on Monday night, he stressed that the museum was prepared to remove the upper deck of the tug from the property once the city’s contracted company dismantles it.
To do this, there would be an additional cost of $120,000, said Cory Halvorsen, the City’s manager of parks and open spaces.
“Right now, the direction from council is to proceed with recycling the full vessel,” he said.
“Once that decision is made, we will be entering into a contract with a company to do that work. The contract will be to recycle and dispose of the entire vessel, including the asbestos abatement. That’s what we’re paying for. Once that contract is entered, I don’t know what options there would be at that point to still save or retain large portions of it.”
He said they cannot ask the contractor to remove the top and let the museum move it and give them a time frame to do that.
“The base price was to recycle everything and dispose of everything. We included in that tender provisional items to save different versions of it,” he said, adding one was to save up to 10 pieces for a total value of $52,000, and here was a bid submitted where they offered prices to do the preservation work at additional cost.
“Let’s just say they cut the top of that from the water line up to salvage the top part, there’s an additional cost to it now.”
If the museum came up with additional costs through fundraising, Halvorsen implied it wouldn’t make a difference because there’s the complexities of the fact that council gave city administration direction of what to do.
“And we’re supposed to do that. In order to save any components, now, we’re not following the direction of council,” he said.
“Once the contract is awarded. I don’t know what process there would be to still find a way to save pieces. The work has to start, and as soon as we award the tender to do the full recycling and disposal, then they’re going to move and act on that as quickly as possible so that they can get their work done on budget the way they had planned.”
Meanwhile, the Transportation Museum continues to operate on an expired but somewhat extended lease at the Pool Six site, which is prime city property for development and the city’s strategic plan.
“I need a lease,” said Muir, adding that without it, they cannot apply for funding.
“As a board, we’ve been racking our brains, thinking, how could we have presented this more clearly and concisely, barring all of the predetermined ideas that council and administration have got already of what they plan for that site. They made it absolutely clear last night that they have alternate plans for that site.”
