Protecting the grave site of 53 sailors
Q: There is a new radar recently installed on a tower near the Port Dalhousie Marina in St. Catharines. Who owns it and what is its purpose?
A: The radar in Port Dalhousie is a surveillance security system that’s keeping watch over the Hamilton and Scourge shipwrecks at the bottom of Lake Ontario.
If anyone gets to close, an alarm is raised and the police are deployed.
The War of 1812 war ships, located about 10 kilometres northwest of Port Dalhousie, are a national historic site owned by the City of Hamilton.
The American vessels sunk during a sudden squall in 1813 and were discovered about 90 metres beneath the water in 1973.
Mike McAllister, the City of Hamilton’s project co-ordinator for the Hamilton and Scourge, said the security system is meant to support the city in its mandate as stewards of the shipwreck site.
“At least 53 sailors perished in a very short time on Aug. 8, 1813, and those sailors are still down with those vessels,” he said.
“One of our goals in putting in that radar surveillance security system is so that we can keep tabs on any activity on the site, because obviously we want to respectfully protect the last official grave site for those 53 sailors.”
McAllister said the ships are basically sitting upright and are largely intact at the bottom of the lake.
In 2006, the province instituted a special ban on diving at the site. That means no one can visit the ships without a licence and boaters can’t even go over the area with a fish finder without a licence because the site has been recognized as incredibly important.
McAllister said the vast majority of the sport diving community are responsible and respectful, but there’s always the chance someone might disrespect the site by visiting it unofficially, so it’s monitored.
The radar system can detect vessels of all sizes moving in and around the shipwreck area. It’s monitored by a radar surveillance technician from Aquatics Sciences Inc., a company headquartered in St. Catharines.
When a boat comes within a 1,000 metre grid square of the wrecks, a set of messages is immediately sent out to stakeholders. If the vessel loiters in the
area for 15 minutes, the Niagara Regional Police marine unit scrambles out to see what the operators are up to.
The City of Hamilton has had a mast equipped with a radar monitoring the shipwreck area since 2004 on a property farther away from the lake shore. It was recently moved to the marina because nearby trees grew too tall and were creating shadows in the radar display which messed with its accuracy.
“The goal was to move the radar to a location where that kind of tree growth would not be an issue any longer,” McAllister said, explaining it didn’t want to cut down trees.
He said time is of the essence to encounter boaters in the area of the shipwrecks. In many cases, they find people enjoying the lake who may not be even be aware there are shipwrecks beneath them.
People who want to learn more
about the Hamilton and Scourge can check out the display at the Hamilton Military Museum. There’s also a virtual tour at 1812tour.hamilton.ca/Hamilton_scourge.html.
Welland Museum has also included a section about the Hamilton and Scourge in its HMS General Hunter Shipwreck exhibit on now through the year.
Q: Why is there a traffic light on Bunting Road roughly midway between Welland Avenue and Dieppe Road in St. Catharines? There is no cross street at this point of Bunting Road.
A: The traffic light is seemingly in the middle of nowhere but it actually serves a function.
Brian Applebee, St. Catharines manager of transportation services, said it’s a mid-block pedestrian signal installed solely for the purpose of allowing people to walk across the road.
Applebee said it’s a long distance between pedestrian crossings at Dieppe Road and Welland Avenue without the mid-block signal.
The traffic light always sits at green unless a pedestrian pushes the button.
Although Bunting Road is a city street, Applebee said Niagara Region paid to install the signal because it has an office on Bunting and approached the city about putting in the crossing.
There’s a similar pedestrian priority signal on St. Paul Street downtown, between Ontario and Carlisle streets.
Q: What is happening with the old St. Catharines Standard building on Queen Street?
A: Not much.
Quebecor sold the 17 Queen St. building in June 2013 and moved The Standard’s newspaper offices to 1 St. Paul St. Various development concepts were floated by the owner of the Queen Street building, including demolishing it for a massive student housing project, but nothing ever materialized.
The building was recently acquired by Primo Investments Inc. of Woodbridge, Ont.
The company told The Standard it had no choice but to take the property over and has no plans for what to do with it yet.
The 0.68-hectare property in the heart of downtown was home to The Standard from 1898 to 2013.
Send your queries to Karena Walter by email at karena.walter@niagaradailies.com; by Twitter @karena_standard