Years ago I almost caused a pileup on Chicago’s busy Northshore Drive when, en route to a Cubs game at Wrigley Field with my wife and our three daughters, I swerved across several lanes of traffic to get a better look at the MV Abegweit — P.E.I.’s iconic car ferry — tied up dockside on Lake Michigan. The dear old Abby. You’re not an Islander “of a certain age” if you don’t have memories of crossing the Northumberland Strait on the Abegweit. Who could count how many times she made that Strait run back and forth between Borden and Cape Tormentine during her banner years from 1947 to 1982? She has been docked in Chicago since 1983, repurposed as the floating clubhouse of the Columbia Yacht Club.
Some of my favourite memories relating to the Abby involve the rush to catch “the first boat” in the morning — that seemed in itself an Island rite of passage (as it were). And then scalding coffee and sweaty toast and runny eggs and a couple of strips of grease-dripping bacon at the breakfast counter with all the other early risers. A lot of my trips across the Strait were to the orthodontist in Moncton to get my braces tightened — crossing on the Abby was definitely a highlight! (The orthodontist’s name was right out of a Superman comic: Dr. Krypton.)
But the most memorable trip was in April of 1961 with my father and my two older brothers. We were on our way to New York City for my father’s birthday and for the start of the baseball season: my father’s sister had arranged tickets for us to see the Yankees play. Mickey Mantle. Roger Maris. Yogi Berra. Whitey Ford. We drove off the Abby at Cape Tormentine ... straight into a blizzard of epic proportions. Fortunately, our little blue Ford Zephyr caught the eye of a snowplow driver and he led us, like a freighter pulling a dory in its wake, to The House on the Hill, a B&B in Port Elgin. The next day, the car buried and abandoned in a snowdrift, my brothers and I stood on the CNR platform in Port Elgin and listened to my father, a man of words, explain to us that we were “storm-stayed” and that our trip was not cancelled, just “postponed.” We returned home to Charlottetown via train . . . and, of course, via the Abby.
All of that came back to me several years ago when I was back in Chicago and decided to pay a visit to the Abby. At first I was satisfied just to see her up close, and I had a passerby snap a photo of me with that familiar prow as the backdrop. I texted that photo off immediately to some of my boyhood friends and heard back instantly a chorus of “You’re so lucky!” I guess that emboldened me to see if I could get on board, though after making my way up the long wooden gangplank and discovering that the heavy metal door in the hull was locked tight, I lost my gumption. I didn’t even ring the bell. There seemed to be no one around, and I wondered if the Yacht Club was closed for the season.
But when I turned to make my way down the gangplank I was met by a couple of men who seemed to belong there. “Can I help you?” one of them asked. When I said I was wondering about going on board to take a look around, he didn’t even blink before putting me in my place: “Absolutely not!” Then he gave me a little lecture on yacht club protocols and courtesies, schooling me on how if I were a member of a yacht club elsewhere, I would be allowed on board by way of a reciprocity agreement etc. etc. I just shrugged and said “OK.” But he wasn’t done with me! He then asked me why I thought it would be OK just to take a wander around a private yacht club. When I told him I was from P.E.I. and had crossed the Strait on the Abby dozens of times in my boyhood, he exclaimed: “Why didn’t you say so?!”
So he welcomed me on board and gave me the grand tour. There have been changes, of course. There’s now a very swanky bar and a white linen dining area in what used to be the big sitting room toward the stern of the ship. And there were other renovations in progress. But I was both surprised and pleased to see how many of the brass fittings had been retained — stair railings and decorative touches around porthole windows — and even some of the signage. As I wandered with my guide, I shared some memories with him, one of my favourites being how the bump of the ferry against the dock in Borden and then the clanking of the steel ramp being lowered decisively onto the wharf announced unmistakably that you were back home on P.E.I. In return he told me of a visitor from the Island who wept as she made the rounds with him: her father had been the Abegweit’s final captain before the ferry was retired.
I didn’t shed a tear during my sentimental journey to the past. In fact, by the time I was walking back down the gangplank for further adventures in the Windy City, I was laughing at the framed letter I noticed on the wall as I was leaving. It was from some fellow Islanders who obviously knew the niceties of yachting reciprocity before they attempted to board the Abby. It was a note from members of the “Priest Pond Yacht Club” thanking the Columbia Yacht Club for its warm hospitality. I’ve been to Priest Pond. There’s no yacht club there.
Thomas O’Grady grew up in Charlottetown. He lives south of Boston but comes home to the Island as often as possible.
