by Bert Millar
I like to paddle kayaks. I like to paddle on creeks, rivers and big water. I enjoy flat water and l love to kayak in monster seas. I like to kayak camp, hike, explore and watch nature. I like to maintain, repair and modify kayaks. I like to mess around in kayaks, go upside down, do rolls, rescues and get wet. I like to read about kayaks and sit in a coffee shop with other paddlers and BS about kayaking. Enough said …we all like that stuff too, don’t we?
But there is another aspect or by-product of kayaking I enjoy and that is observing the history of areas we visit. 
We see it on the drive to and from the launch site: the old barns and farmhouses, the broken down stone fences, ghost towns, abandoned bridges, pioneer cemeteries with their weathered headstones, and the roadside historical plaques. The drive can be as much fun as the paddling (as long as you’re not on a 400 Series Highway).
From the water we see ruins of dams, derelict cabins, grown over farms, iron rings fastened on the rocks, remains of shipwrecks, old docks and piers slowly being washed away by the waves. It’s always fun to research the things we have found; the story behind them is usually fascinating and ripe with human drama.
Last Thanksgiving weekend, Betty and I decided to explore the Bruce Peninsula once again. The weather forecast was promising cold, wet and windy with possible snow so we wimped out, left the tent at home and reserved a room at Beachside Motel in Lion’s Head. We got up early Saturday and arrived in Lion’s Head in the late morning. The weather was cool but sunny with a light offshore breeze so we threw our packs in the room, put on our wetsuits, yanked the kayaks off the roof and set them down on the little sandy beach to launch. As we paddled out the harbour, east toward the famous Lion’s Head cliffs a crane was pulling yachts from the water and setting them all into cradles. The owners were cleaning the bottoms and getting them ready for winter. I wondered why they don’t like fall boating especially when they have a protective cabin and many other luxuries; they must be wusses, we decided. The cliffs were spectacular as usual, the sun was strong and there was a gentle swell from the east so we quickly rounded the point and paddled south to Gun Point where we stopped for a shore lunch. We wondered how Gun Point got its name. What happened here? After a tricky launch into small surf from a boulder shoreline we headed back around Lion’s Head Point and Holy S–t, the bay was solid whitecaps, a strong headwind from the west, so strong that if we couldn’t penetrate I considered pulling back into the lee of the point, hiding our boats in the woods and walking back to town on the Bruce Trail. However, we persevered and found we could move up wind slowly but surely. It took us quite a while to get back to Lion’s Head, paddling our butts off into the nasty little short period wind waves. Betty was enjoying the challenge in her newly acquired Solstice GTS, a fast little West Coast cruiser with a comfortable seat, so we whooped and hollered, cursed and swore, stroked and braced till the little village was within our grasp. When we arrived at the marina, exhausted and sweaty, a drunken man and woman on the dock told us to be careful of the cold. I tried to explain that we were warm from our workout in the head wind but they didn’t understand.
The next day we left early and followed a long winding road to Cabot Head. At Cabot Head there is a lighthouse/museum manned by a volunteer. It was a lovely place full of artifacts, furniture, photos and tools. It even had a piano and a big honking wood cooking range just like grandma had. You can climb a short flight of stairs to the light tower and enjoy a stunning 360 degree view of cliffs, forest and the endless expanse of Georgian Bay. We had hoped to paddle here but the lake was too rough to launch or land on the rocky shoreline so we decided to hike instead. We followed the shoreline around Wingfield Basin, examining some stone ruins and the wreck of a large boat, the Gargantua. What an interesting wreck; it even has trees growing from it.
Continuing west along the rocky rugged shoreline we enjoyed the large surf waves breaking on the boulders; sometimes we had to climb up to the upper beach plateaus to avoid the water. Our destination was about three kilometres farther along the shoreline to a large rusting steam boiler from some long forgotten shipwreck. I had seen this relic several years ago when I had paddled down from Tobermory and wanted to see it again. (If any GLSKA members have paddled this stretch of Georgian Bay coast west of Cabot Head you may have spotted this artifact.) It was farther than I thought but finally we found it and stopped for rest and a snack. Where did it come from and what was the story behind this? As Betty took photos I found another interesting thing, a fish smoking pit dug into the cobble beach with a perfectly flat bottom made by First Nations people long ago. Anyone who has paddled the north shore of Lake Superior will recognize the pits; there they are known as Pukaskwa Pits to the Aboriginal historians.
Nearby we walked into the forest and found two old graves, now just mounds of rock about six feet long, side by side. One had the rotted remains of a wooden burial cross lying on top. The inscription carved into the wood said “Jesus is Lord of All.” That was it, no name or date left if they ever were there in the first place. Who were these people and why are they buried in this beautiful but remote and windswept place? We pondered these questions on the hike back until we found another treasure. We had to climb up to one of the higher stepped prehistoric boulder beaches and in between two stone ridges were two small areas about six feet apart that had flat rocks placed very carefully so they interlocked and provided a very flat surface. These were a lot of work to do this so nicely and were well weathered. I came to the conclusion that they may have been sleeping pads with an overturned war canoe on top as a shelter or maybe a tepee or skin tent was erected over these pads. It started to snow so we started the long trek back to the car still discussing our rare and fascinating finds.
The next day we had a leisurely drive homeward along the coast looking for future kayak launch sites and destinations for next season. As soon as we arrived back home we searched Great Lakes Shipwreck websites and found the story of the mysterious boilers. It belonged to a ship called the Kincardine and below is what we found out about it.
So the trip was not over when we got home and unpacked as we had to research the origins of the shipwreck which we found. We have contacted Bruce Peninsula historical societies trying to find info on the graves but there is no data at all regarding them. The Kincardine went down with no loss of life but there have been many other wrecks and tragedies in that area over the last two centuries so they could be drowned sailors, First Nations hunters who succumbed to disease or starvation or homesteaders whose cabin is slowly decaying in the forest, unseen by human eyes.
We will probably never know.
KINCARDINE, (Steamship), 1892, Official No. C
Year: 1892
Date: June 2
Location: Wingfield Basin, Georgian Bay
Lake: Lake Huron
Reason: Aground, fire
Lives: Nil
Freight: Salt
Remarks: Total loss
Steam screw KINCARDINE. of 176 tons gross; 142 tons Reg. Built Port Dalhousie, Ont., 1871. Home port, Goderich, Ont. 107.0 x 20.0 x 8.9 Owned by Thomas Marks, of Port Arthur, Ont.
List of Vessels on the Registry Books of the Dominion of Canada on December 31, 1886
The Tug KINCARDINE of Goderich, stranded near Cabot’s Head, Georgian Bay, 1892. Total loss.
Steamboat Inspection Casualty Report, 1892
Ontario Division, Dept. Marine & Fisheries
Tobermory, June 3. – Steam barge KINCARDINE, laden with salt went ashore last night at Winfields Basin (sic), 20 miles from here. The weather was very foggy at the time with rain and brisk easterly wind. The steamer soon began to go to pieces, but the crew succeeded in reaching shore in safety
Buffalo Enquirer, Thursday, June 3, 1892
Early in June of 1892, KINCARDINE was bound for Collingwood, laden with barrels of salt. She stranded on the rocky shore of Cabot Head, not far from Wingfield Basin, or about 20 miles east of Tobermory. With her bow on shore, her stern settled in fifteen feet of water. There was about seven feet of water in her hold. The only salvage effort made was that a tug was sent up from Collingwood, and the tug carried away about 200 barrels of salt.
The fish tug CLUCAS departed Tobermory June 10th with the tug ADAM AINSLIE in tow. They were bound for the Owen Sound drydock, where the AINSLIE would receive some repairs to her machinery. As they passed the KINCARDINE wreck, they observed her to be on fire. The Owen Sound Times of Thursday, June 16th, reported: “The whole portion of the barge which was above water was consumed. There seems to be no doubt that the fire was of incendiary origin, as the boiler and engine were beneath water and no one was supposed to be on board. The KINCARDINE was slightly rebuilt here this spring, and has been ashore four or five times since she went out. She was owned, we understand, by Captain A. Thompson, Mr. Chas. Richardson and Mr. Christie, of the Michaels Bay Lumber Co. There was no marine insurance on her, but a fire insurance of $6,500.”
The last sentence of the press report certainly makes one appreciate the manner in which the fire aboard KINCARDINE might have occurred… In any event, what remained of KINCARDINE after the fire was left to the elements for four years. Early in October of 1896, the Collingwood tug SAUCY JIM was at work at the site of the wreck, recovering the engine.
Today, hikers travelling along the Bruce Trail can see a large piece of rusting metal partially buried in the rocks and gravel of the Georgian Bay shoreline, just west of Wingfield Basin. This, undoubtedly, is part of KINCARDINE’s boiler, and today it remains as the only physical trace of her existence, almost a century after the steamer’s loss.
Ronald F. Beaupre, SCANNER, 1991