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Photograph: The Derelict S. S. Kyle

Posted December 28th, 2005 at 08:24pm

Running errands today, and I couldn’t resist going down the road to Harbour Grace to take a photograph through all the rain and mist of the S. S. Kyle, an ancient Newfoundland coastal steamer that was stranded upon a sand bar during a storm nearly four decades ago, and there remains. The coal-burning vessel, launched in 1913 and once the glory of the island’s most perilous ferry runs, is one of the first things a person sees upon entering this tiny community on the bay. Despite corroding into a rusting hulk in the harsh salt air of so many years, she has become somewhat of a tourist attraction in the area, and back in 1997 was even given a fresh coat of paint.

When I was a child, our family’s summer home was nearby, and I still remember quite vividly how I stood upon the shoreline a couple hundred feet away with my father, staring out at the strange old ghost ship, thinking I heard voices and wondering what it would be like to visit her.