Passage to the Sea: The Story of Canada Steamship Lines

T.D. Regehr is a history professor at the University of Saskatchewan and
the author of For Everything a Season: A History of the Alexanderkrone
Zentralschule and Mennonites in Canada, Volume 3, 1939-1970.

Canada Steamship Lines has been the largest and most influential
Canadian Great Lakes and St. Lawrence shipping company since its
creation (through a series of corporate mergers) in 1913. Over the
years, its managers had to respond to numerous changes in business
practices, political priorities, and new-technology challenges. In
addition to its Great Lakes and St. Lawrence vessels, it has been active
in shipbuilding (particularly during World War II), trucking, bus
transport services, resort hotels, and luxury tourist services. For many
years it was best known as the operator of luxury passenger ships; but
its most important function was always the transport of bulk freight for
which enormous ships incorporating the latest technology were built.
Over the years the company was forced to close some services (most
notably its passenger, package freight and shipbuilding functions), but
added others.

Passage to the Sea is a very handsomely produced book that includes
numerous black-and-white photographs of various vessels, other company
ventures, and senior company executives, along with a generous section
of beautiful paintings and color photographs of ships and facilities
operated by the company. The writing is brisk and colorful, as befits a
former newspaper reporter who, we are informed, was given virtually
unrestricted access to the vast company archives in Montreal. Scholars
will, however, be disappointed to find no footnotes and no bibliography.

Collard’s primary interest is to describe various senior company
executives, and to discuss their achievements and the problems they
faced. His character sketches and his descriptions of new and innovative
technology are particularly well done; but this is history as viewed
from the executive suite. A number of critically important issues dealt
with by company executives are not covered adequately: the changing
capital structure of the company after the 1913 merger remains vague and
incomplete; company workers are rarely mentioned unless they caused
trouble by going on strike; and the competition, rivalry and
monopolistic practices in the shipping industry remain unclear. Only two
of the more than 20 unions with which the company negotiated contracts
are discussed in any detail—Pat Sullivan’s communist-dominated
Canadian Seaman’s Union and the Hal Banks-dominated Seaman’s
International Union.

Passage to the Sea is a beautiful, coffee-table book. Company
executives, such as former CSL president Paul Martin (who wrote the
foreword), will probably feel honored and take pride in the book; but
ordinary workers, except those who worked on the luxury liners, will not
find their stories here. Scholars will find much in it that is of great
interest, but they will probably be frustrated by the author’s failure
to follow normal scholarly practices.