A piece of local history has been returned to town after spending many years thousands of kilometres away.
A painting of the region’s famed logging boat, the Hallet, created by prominent local artist Peter Spuzak in 1983, has been donated to the Fort Frances Museum and Cultural Centre after having moved as far away as California with its owners.
Mayor Andrew Hallikas was on hand at the museum on Feb. 10 to present the repatriated watercolour.
“This painting of the Hallet is being donated by a former classmate of mine, Sally Lowe, now Sally Burlington, who currently lives in California,” Hallikas said.
“Sally was kind enough to package it up, mail it to a friend who delivered it to me at the Civic Centre. This painting was given to Sally as a gift by her father, Al Lowe, who happens to be my former physics teacher at Fort Frances High School.”
The painting held some significance to the family, as a member had been employed on the logging vessel during its time on Rainy Lake from the 1940s to the 1970s.
“The painting was given to Sally, as I mentioned, by her father,” Hallikas said. “Her father, Al Lowe Sr., who purchased the painting from Connie Cuthbertson at Northwoods Gallery and Gifts, and it hung on the wall at the family cabin for years; this painting had special significance to the Lowe family since Sally’s brother Al Lowe Jr. worked on the Hallet with George Tucker every summer during his high school years.”
Recalling creating the piece, Spuzak said he often painted similar subject matter.
“It kind of struck me as something to paint because of the history in Fort Frances and the age of it and, as [the Mayor] said earlier, the years it spent here and the importance of the Hallet,” Spuzak said. “I kind of went around looking for subject matter like that, so it was a very easy choice for me to paint a picture.”
Spuzak is not quite sure of the work’s full provenance, not knowing exactly how it ended up in Northwoods where it was bought by the Lowe family. “I sort of don’t know where they all went; I should probably have tracked them a little bit better,” Spuzak joked. “They’ve travelled all over.”
The area depicted in the painting, with the Hallet on a trailer, is currently the location of a condominium building.
The painting will find a home as part of the logging exhibit on the museum’s second floor near a charcoal sketch, also one of Spuzak’s works .
The 18-metre (60-foot) tugboat has been a prominent heritage landmark at the waterfront for decades, symbolizing the town’s logging history. Built in 1940 by Russell Brothers Ltd. it was hauled in pieces by rail to Fort Frances, then reassembled for use by the local pulp and paper mill. In its day, the Hallett was the largest and most powerful boat on Rainy Lake, used to haul massive log booms. It remained in service until 1974, when logging operations shifted away from water transport.
Fort Frances has been working to preserve and display two historic tugboats, the Hallett and the Owandem, but council had been divided over how and where to showcase them due to high costs and site complications.
In 2022, the Hallett was removed from its waterfront berth after deterioration was discovered in a concrete cradle it had been sitting in at the waterfront for more than a decade. For safety reasons, the town decided to remove the boat from public display and place it in storage until a new plan could be made. Council decided in December that it will be returned to its spot in the water.
The smaller 7.6-metre (25-foot) Owandem, also built by Russell Brothers, was also used during the same period to help move and guide log booms to the mill, often working in tighter areas where the larger Hallett couldn’t maneuver as easily.
