To the Wonderful People of Kingston, Ontario
From your friends and neighbors in Port McNicoll, Ontario
There is an organization in your incredible city working headlong to deprive us of our most loved historic possession.
The Marine Museum at Kingston has signaled its intention to appropriate a 116-year-old historical vessel from the small Ontario community from which it once sailed, and whose residents have lovingly restored and maintained it over the last decade.
The SS Keewatin is the only one of its kind, the last British built Edwardian passenger liner in the world. Its owners have set a price-tag on the ship, but to the people of Port McNicoll - its home port and its rightful home - it is priceless.
Its presence anchors the community - both literally and figuratively - its image graces our murals, flags, stationary, publications, and community events.
In the minds of many thousands in our community a move to Kingston is an abhorrent act - the unjust appropriation of cultural and heritage property that is, in 2023, grossly out of sync with national and global opinion; the Kingston Marine Museum and its director Chris West and are undeterred, committed to removing our beloved ship to their own benefit.
West argues that the ship needs a "forever home" but ignores the evidence that that home already exists - 15,100 residents have signed a petition to keep the Keewatin in Port McNicoll. Thousands of hours of volunteer work have gone into its restoration. There are heritage organizations in Simcoe County that are fully capable of operating and managing the vessel, and would be delighted to do so.
As cultural properties continue to be returned to their respective communities globally - Babylonian tablets to Iraq, Indigenous artifacts to their native communities - how long will it be before the pressure to return the SS Keewatin to its home port becomes irresistible - 5 years? 10? 40? How much will the people of Kingston have invested in the Keewatin before this happens? Why not simply leave the ship where it belongs in the first place?
Perhaps this realization is why half the Marine Museum’s board of directors resigned just a year ago over Mr. West's plan to bring the Keewatin to Kingston?
West may be hoping that once the ship weighs anchor, the people of Port McNicoll will simply forgive and forget. But we won't. This community will continue to ask those who will listen to return our vessel, until it is rightfully at home, at rest.
We wish the City of Kingston and indeed the Marine Museum every ounce of success in the future. We love your city, the Marine Museum deserves to be successful, deserves to be great, it deserves a display ship. But as a museum and a community that have felt the agony of losing a ship - namely the Alexander Henry - it is the perfect irony that they would seek to inflict the same heartbreak on our community.
You, good people of Kingston, have the opportunity to make a choice about what kind of a community you wish to be. Is it a community that respects cultural heritage and finds its own path to success, or one that profits from the pain of others?
We, the people of Port McNicoll have a big favour to ask of you… our friends and neighbours. We hope that you, the citizens of Kingston will make the right choice, and encourage the Marine Museum to abandon their unjust acquisition of the Keewatin.
You can assist us by emailing or calling Mayor Paterson (mayor@cityofkingston.ca), MPP Ted Hsu (thsu.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org) and MP Mark Gerretsen (mark.gerretsen@parl.gc.ca) and ask them simply to keep the Keewatin at home.