The Boblo Boat, which last took passengers to and from the now defunct Boblo Island Amusement Park on the Detroit River in 1993, near Amherstburg, Ontario, will soon reopen to visitors. Both the S.S. Ste. Claire, built in 1910, and the S.S. Columbia, built in 1902, transported visitors to the park, and the Ste. Claire is now set to welcome visitors aboard as a museum boat after years of restoration, while the Columbia undergoes restoration work in New York, reports MLive.
The boat will be a dockside attraction on the Detroit River in Detroit, and reservations to board and explore the first floor of the boat are available for $10. The St. Claire will not be moved in order to preserve her original steam engine and condition. Preservation work will continue, after a fire significantly damaged the boat in 2018, with the end goal of visitors eventually being able to walk all four decks.
“We want it to be a dockside attraction on the Detroit River in Detroit accessible to the public,” says Stephen Faraj, who is spearheading the restoration project, reports MLive. “We want to create an area on the riverfront where people can come enjoy the boat…It will be loaded with nostalgia from Boblo and you’ll really get a feeling of what people used to experience. That’s what we’re going for,” he adds.
PHOTO: BOBLO BOAT SS STE CLAIRE FACEBOOK
