Glossary
Back to "Time and Place"
Homepage

When the P.S. Lady Sherbrooke was launched in 1817, over 160 years ago, Canada was not the country it is today. The introduction of steam technology to a country the size of Canada would have major implications on its development. It was now possible to establish a schedule. This may be a difficult concept to understand but where a trip between Montréal and Québec could take more than two week, if the wind and current did not want to cooperate, a traveller could make the trip in as little as 15 hours. Obviously an extreme improvement and a major change to the concept of travel! Also, since a machine does the majority if not all of the work you can arrive relatively refreshed at you destination.

The P.S. Lady Sherbrooke is today the oldest known witness of that revolution in Canada. Indeed this is not just another wreck. It is the essential link between the our past and our present. By studying that old steamboat we were able to, to a certain extent, penetrate in the mind of its designer, Isaac Johnson. We stood as witnesses to his hesitations, his experiments, his success, and of course his failures. The P.S. Lady Sherbrooke as every other ship represents a cross section of the time and place in which it was designed and used.

The importance of this vessel can not be overlooked. The P.S. Lady Sherbrooke is the oldest Canadian built vessel thoroughly excavated, not just the oldest steamer. The story of this boat is one of the first chapters in Canadian history.