Living history arrives

A typical June morning unfolded on Toronto's busy waterfront. Boxy, diesel-powered passenger ferries chugged toward the islands just offshore in Lake Ontario, while pleasure craft and fishing boats cut erratic pathways in the choppy water.

By noon, the boardwalk at Queens Quay Harbor was accumulating a crowd. The group went quiet when a ghostly spectacle floated into view a half-mile away. Through a light haze, with sails stretched by the wind, three tall ships entered the bay.

First came the Canadian racing schooner Bluenose II, followed by the Pride of Baltimore II, and finally and most spectacularly, the U.S. Brig Niagara, with mainmasts as tall as some of the 10-story condo buildings fronting the lake.

They passed in front of us in eerie silence -- with no engines, there is no sound but wood cutting through water. Then the Baltimore and Niagara fired their cannons, shaking spectators and leaving clouds of gunsmoke floating like fog on the water.

It is a scene that, wind-willing, will be duplicated in Duluth in a few weeks' time. Two of those three ships are on their way to Minnesota as you read this; a third ship, the schooner Madeline, will take the place of the storied Bluenose as the ships sail into port July 31. Three days of events and tours follow (Aug. 1-3), and more than 20,000 people are expected.

Once the ships tied up at port in Toronto, visitors had the chance to step aboard, talk to the crews and, on the Niagara at least, inspect the cramped living quarters below decks.

Living naval history

The Niagara, the biggest of the ships, sails with a professional crew of about 10, supplemented by about 30 volunteers, sailing students and paying passengers. They work shifts around the clock, doing everything from emptying the heads to climbing up in the rigging to strike the sails.

"Every muscle in my body hurts," said Roger DeYoung, 55, of Pittsburgh. He'd just finished his first week of three aboard the ship as a paying trainee (at about $1,000 a week). "I wish I were in better shape, but otherwise, it's everything I could have hoped for. It's a dream come true to be part of this."

Each night, more than 20 crew members tie up their hammocks side by side in the berthing quarters, where the overheads (what landlubbers call ceilings) are only 5 feet high. "Last night I had to reach out and punch the guy in the next hammock, he was snoring so loud," said volunteer crew member Bob Harkins of Erie, Pa., where the Niagara is based.

Both the Niagara and the Pride of Maryland have back stories as impressive as their mainmasts. The original Niagara was built specifically to counter the British Navy on the Great Lakes during the War of 1812. Part of a fleet commanded by Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, the Niagara played a pivotal role in the Battle of Lake Erie. When Perry's flagship, the Lawrence, was disabled, he switched to the Niagara, and routed the British fleet. "We have met the enemy and they are ours," he famously proclaimed afterward. The reconstructed Niagara is the star attraction of the Erie Maritime Museum. It spends summers doing day-sails on that lake and longer journeys like the one that brings it to Duluth.

The Pride of Baltimore II is a replica of a Baltimore clipper, an agile vessel used by privateers preying on slow-but-powerful British vessels, also during the time of the War of 1812. The ship is owned and operated by the state of Maryland, and is based in Chesapeake Bay.

The Madeline, smallest of the three ships, is a replica of a Great Lakes schooner, which hauled cargo on Lake Michigan in the 1840s and '50s.

Smell of the sea

In Toronto, the Niagara was the biggest attraction for tours. At port side, a long line to get aboard snaked back and forth on the quay.

Crew members stood watch on stations from bow to stern, explaining various aspects of the ship to visitors. Nora McCulla, 21, of Washington, D.C., was manning the 35-pound carronade (a type of cannon), patiently explaining how it was loaded and how the greatest danger to the enemy wasn't from the heavy iron ball itself, but from the flying wooden splinters that became shrapnel upon impact.

McCulla was on her second tour aboard the Niagara, and said that even after many weeks aboard she still was struggling to learn the ropes, literally. "I've had real trouble memorizing the lines," she said. "There are 250 on the Niagara, and they all have a name, they're all attached to a sail and there is a separate command for lowering and raising them all."

"I'm going on three days," said Boatswain Rob Aspinwall. "I do miss a shower."

First Mate Billy Sabatini said he'd made an accidental discovery that helped him cope. "My grandmother is always sending me stuff and last time she threw in some Old Spice Extreme. I'm going on three days, too, but you wouldn't know it."