Fort Frances tugboats’ restoration gets funding
FORT FRANCES — The Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation is helping the Town of Fort Frances create a new waterfront tourist attraction featuring two old logging tugboats.
The town will use $487,500 in funding to restore the Hallett and Owandem tugboats, design a dry dock to display them and landscape the waterfront area.
“When completed, the exhibit will highlight the importance and history of logging along the Rainy River,” according to a news release from the provincial government.
“We’re really grateful that this funding is available, and we’re going to be able to make the Hallett and the Owandem something that people can visit and see again,” Fort Frances Museum curator Danielle Marshall said Thursday.
The 60-foot Hallett has been on dry land by the river since 2022 when flooding forced the town to relocate it.
It will be moved to a spot near its present location a couple of blocks from the museum building after restoration work is completed, said Marshall.
She said the much smaller Owandem is being kept in the town’s public works yard and, once its restoration is completed, will be moved to a spot near the Hallett.
Visitors will be able to walk inside the restored Hallett, but the Owandem will likely be just a display piece and not for boarding, she said.
The Hallett was constructed in 1940 by Russell Brothers in Owen Sound and transported by rail in pieces to Fort Frances, where it was reassembled for use by a local pulp and paper mill.
It hauled tens of thousands of cords of wood every year until its retirement in the mid-1970s.
The Hallett was placed at the town’s Point Park in 1983 and restored by the Fort Frances Museum, which moved it to the Sorting Gap Marina in 2009.
The 25-foot Owandem, built by the same company in 1942, was donated to the museum in 2017.
The Heritage Fund money makes “the tugboats’ restoration and the beautification of their surroundings” possible, said Marshall, adding that the funding also makes possible “a future where these historic gems thrive, offering a chance for people to explore the vessels that were once a fixture on the Rainy River.”
Funding for the vessels’ renovation was announced Wednesday in Fort Frances by Kenora-Rainy River MPP Greg Rickford, who is Ontario’s minister of Northern Development.
“By working with municipal partners on legacy projects like the ones we are recognizing today, we are ensuring families and visitors have the opportunity to learn about our community’s history while enjoying local tourism attractions,” Rickford said.
At the same news conference, he also announced that the museum will receive $84,800 from the Ontario Trillium Foundation to enhance digital offerings, learning opportunities, community curation and cultural tourism.
Some of the Trillium grant will be used to “digitize more of our collection so it’s available online,” Marshall said.
Earlier in the week, Rickford announced that $180,000 in Heritage Fund money is going to the Town of Rainy River for washroom renovations at Hannam Park.
The town will winterize the park’s public washrooms and make them more accessible, according to a news release.
Mike Stimpson, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Thunder Bay Source