The people that do these tours are very enthusiastic and engaging. Don't let the cold weather hold you back, they turn on several small heaters inside the submarine before the tours begin, however dress warm if you are doing a winter tour. As it was cold outside we just visited the submarine (inside tour), however I'm sure the beach and surrounding area would be more popular during the summer. During the winter it is open on the last weekend of each month (Sat/Sun). Undeterred, McNeil says he likes the idea visitors will be “gob-smacked.We made the trip down to Port Burwell at the end of December in order to visit the submarine. With the feds covering only a fraction, that’s meant a huge leap of faith for organizers - deficit financing - until admission and sponsorship start to flow.Įven the trip from Halifax was fraught with risks even moderate seas could have swamped the sub on either the floating dock or the barge used in the mega-journey. The interpretation centre will cost up to another $3 million. In its after-life, it has survived other perils.įirst, there was the $6-million tab to decommission and transport the sub. we were probably not going to have the capacity to handle all the visitors at the height of the tourism season,” says Dan McNeil, the project co-ordinator who once commanded Canada’s East Coast naval forces.īut the Ojibwa will be more than just a curiosity it’ll also be a lasting monument to the Canadian submarine service, which marks its 100th anniversary in 2014, and a showpiece draw for a museum replacing what’s now a cramped military collection.įor years the Ojibwa patrolled the North Atlantic, shadowing Soviet subs and taking part in NATO defences. Vetted by the Richard Ivey School of Business at Western University, the business plan for Project Ojibwa turned up a revealing statistic: Within a four-hour radius of Port Burwell are 22 school boards - tens of thousands of potential field-trip visitors - alone. In his mind’s eye, the retired Canadian rear admiral overseeing the project - as a volunteer - foresees no shortage of crowds for the future museum, either. Two weeks ago, the Ojibwa drew thousands of onlookers as it slipped through the Welland Canal. Add in their sinister bearing, and the attraction only grows. They range from a German U-boat housed in a new building at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry, to often-overlooked gem, the USS Croaker, tucked beneath an overpass in Buffalo, N.Y.ĭesigned to be neither seen nor heard, submarines are must-sees for just those reasons. In the U.S., about two dozen subs are in various states of display. Submarines, it may be a surprise to landlubbers, can be hot tourism draws. In time, the football-field-long boat will anchor a new museum saluting the military history of Elgin County, which pre-dates Canada itself. Safely moved off its barge last week, the Ojibwa was floated in stages from Halifax to tiny Port Burwell, on Lake Erie’s north shore, in a months-long operation like something off one of those cable-TV shows about oversized equipment used to conquer big challenges. It’s a Cold War-era Canadian submarine, the HMCS Ojibwa. Into that man-made tourism abyss comes something with all the hallmarks of a tourism heavy hitter, something so big and unusual, it’s almost bound to succeed on novelty alone. You can only absorb so many Victorian teahouses, roadside zoos and beaches before it’s “been there, done that.” Almost nothing in that zone that fun forgot compels drivers to get off Hwy. 401. Take the denuded flatlands of Southwestern Ontario between Detroit and Toronto, through which the nation’s busiest highway runs. Not that some parts of the province couldn’t use a Disney-like home run to revive their economies. With Mother Nature batting for it, Ontario’s never had to belt out made-from-scratch tourism hits.
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