Our Nautical Nights Speaker Series, in partnership with Kingston Yacht Club (KYC), has become an annual tradition at the Marine Museum. It’s one other way to keep us connected and warm during the cold winter (and spring) months!
We feature a wide variety of speakers who draw on the unique power of storytelling to share their perspectives and research. Speakers cover a range of topics surrounding environmental, social and military histories, as well as current issues or phenomenon. These unique evenings are currently offered virtually with $5 tickets to help cover speaker honorariums and future events.
Scroll down to catch-up on last year's (winter 2021) speaker presentations.
Winter 2022 Speaker Series
Our 5th annual Nautical Nights Winter Speaker Series in partnership with Kingston Yacht Club begins Wednesday 12 January 2022 with delivery via YouTube live-stream. In-person delivery will resume when local regulations and case numbers permit safe gathering. This year we are featuring a number of local historians, storytellers and maritime experts. Full speaker details are below.
Tickets are $6.50 (tax incl.) per presentation or $32.50 for the remainder of the series. Purchased tickets will provide access to the YouTube live-stream post-event.
Kingston's Royal Naval Dockyard, 1874-1815
Dr. David More
12 January 2022
Before and during the War of 1812, the Naval Dockyard in Kingston where RMC now stands created wooden sailing warships, some as large and powerful as any to be found in Britain’s blue water Royal Navy. HMS St. Lawrence was a 100+ gun ship of the line, the largest sailing warship ever to sail the Great Lakes. The bones of several of these vessels still lie in Kingston waters, and are now officially National Heritage Sites. This presentation will acquaint participants with the interesting history of a major naval dockyard that once employed more than 1,500 men and women and built a fresh water navy, at a time when the entire civilian population of Kingston was only about the same. It was an enormous accomplishment that was important to the survival of Upper Canada under British rule.
Sisters of the Ice
Bruce Macdonald
26 January 2022
In this presentation the author will discuss a brief history of Canadian Arctic sovereignty by looking back at some of the ships and sailors who worked in the Arctic when it was still seen as a terra incognita, unclaimed by any country. This is a linked series of true Canadian Arctic sea stories illustrated with many never before seen in public photographs as well as a short historical video. Definitely an evening for sailors as given by a sailor. Order the book here!
Ferry Tales from Wolfe Island - the Picture Show
Brian Johnson
9 February 2022
Almost twenty-five years in the making, this is a collection of stories involving getting to and from the biggest island in the Thousand Islands over a period of 300 years, from 1673 to 2008. While the book might be classed as historical fiction, it is based on actual facts with actual people, based on historical essays, ferry logbooks, family diaries and scrapbooks, newspaper articles and recollections.
Brian was the founding president of the Wolfe Island Historical Society in 2006. He continues to serve as a director on the WIHS board contributing to Windword, the annual journal of the WIHS. He was also a relief captain for the St. Lawrence Cruise Line’s Canadian Empress visiting various historic ports from Kingston to Quebec City on the St. Lawrence River and Kingston to Ottawa on the Ottawa River.
La Vérendrye and the Search for the Western Sea
Dr. Scott Berthelette
9 March 2022
In the 1730s, the Governor of New France tasked sieur de La Vérendrye with establishing les postes de la Mer de l'Ouest in the territory of northwest Lake Superior. These posts were meant to challenge the Hudson's Bay Company for fur trade dominance. Canadian voyageurs and coureurs de bois were at the heart of the operations to discover the so-called Western Sea. Working for French colonial authorities; increasingly, they found themselves between two worlds as they built relationships with Indigenous communities, sometime joining them through adoption or marriage. The result was an ambivalent empire guided by ambiguous or imperfect information, built upon a contested Indigenous borderland, fragmented by local interests, periodically neglected; and yet, still perceived as immensely valuable by French ministers and bureacrats.
Admiral Henry Wolsey Bayfield, RN: Master Chartmaker of the Great Lakes and St Lawrence River and Gulf
David Yates
23 March 2022
Admiral H. W. Bayfield, RN was one of the most extraordinary British naval officers of the 19th-century. A veteran of the Napoleonic Wars and War of 1812, Bayfield charted Canada's most well travelled waterways from Duluth, Minnesota to Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Labrador coast. Charting Canada's vast coastline under some of the most trying conditions make Bayfield's sea saga one of the most fascinating stories in Canadian naval history. During Bayfield's half century on Canadian waters, he encountered such legendary figures as explorer, Captain Sir John Franklin, mapmaker David Thompson and artist and naturalist John James Audubon. When he retired to Charlottetown, PEI in 1867, of the 215 Admiralty charts issued for Canadian waters, Bayfield had drafted 114 of them. Bayfield justly deserves his title 'The Father of Canadian Hydrography".
Underwater Canada
Jill Heinerth
6 April 2022
Royal Canadian Geographic Society Explorer-in-Residence Jill Heinerth joins for a visual journey along Canada's coasts, exploring hidden caves, shipwrecks and icebergs.
Jill leads expeditions into extreme environments to advance scientific and geographic knowledge. Her projects have been broadcast on the CBC, BBC, PBS, Discovery Channel, and television networks worldwide. Jill was recently announced as the recipient of the William Beebe Award from the Explorer’s Club and will be inducted into the International Scuba Divers Hall of Fame in fall 2020.
Autumn Speaker Event - 8 December 2021 at 7pm
Course Correction: Shaping a Legacy for the Future
Chris Chafe8 December 2021
How the passing of sailing legend Francis MacLachlan inspired the organisation he founded to reevaluate its purpose, and to strive for greater meaning in a post-pandemic world.
This presentation will look at the impact of Francis MacLachlan's legacy, and how his passing inspired TSEC-Brigantine to dream big, undertake some ambitious voyages through Lake Superior, Maritime Quebec, Labrador, Newfoundland, and Nunatsiavut, and develop new programming to help inspire a new generation of leaders, and to support our communities through the adventure of sail.
Winter 2021 Speaker Series
Our 4th annual Nautical Nights Winter Speaker Series in partnership with Kingston Yacht Club was a virtual success. This year we featured a number of local historians, storytellers and maritime experts. Full speaker details are below along with link to recording,
Local Shipwrecks and Historic Sites
Jonathan Moore
13 January 2021
During the War of 1812, Kingston was the scene of a remarkable shipbuilding contest with American forces across Lake Ontario at Sackets Harbor. Some of these hastily built British warships had “as great bulk as any on the Ocean” as one contemporary Royal Navy officer observed. Following the war the vessels eventually fell into disrepair and ultimately were towed from the Royal Navy base at Navy Bay and sunk. Today, three of these wrecks (HMS St. Lawrence, HMS Prince Regent, and HMS Princess Charlotte) are commemorated as the War of 1812 Shipwrecks National Historic Site of Canada. Jonathan Moore will outline the story of these once formidable warships, illustrate the wrecks themselves and describe their commemoration as a national historic site.
Lady Franklin and the Lost Franklin Expedition
Dr. Erika Behrisch
27 January 2021
In the 1850s, the search for the lost Franklin Expedition was considered England’s “Modern Odyssey,” and Lady Franklin nothing less than the “Penelope of England.” Today, she is still often portrayed as a symbol, but now as a conniving strategist whose own ambitions propelled her husband to his tragic end.
This presentation considers the life of one of the Victorian period’s most compelling women in a new light: not as a Penelope or conniver, but as a master of narrative. Moving between history, biography, and fiction, Erika explores how Lady Franklin’s character continues to fascinate, rile, and inspire as much as the lost Franklin Expedition itself. Dr. Erika Behrisch is a Professor at Royal Military College.
Seaway Queens
Jim McRae
10 February 2021
Seaway Queens focuses on the design and beauty of the most celebrated Lakes vessels built on the U.S. and Canadian sides of the Great Lakes between 1950-69. Includes first-person accounts and interviews with some of the builders and shapers of both the vessels and the industry as a whole. It also takes a brief look at the modern era, where technology and innovation ensure the freshwater fleet continues to play a vital role in society.
Jim McRae has been on and around Lakers all of his life, beginning as a young boy when he first started visiting the ships during winter layup in his hometown of Montreal. Over the years, he had part-time jobs aboard ships during college, and has featured the Great Lakes - Seaway industry in much of his work over two decades. He’s probably shared stories with more sailors than anyone else in Canada, beginning with his dad.
A History of the Sandbanks
John Brebner
24 February 2021
A history of the Sandbanks, driven by political events both within Canada and in the United States in the 19th century.
How the Sandbanks of Prince Edward County appears today have been shaped in the 19th century primarily by political decisions taken in the United States since the War of Independence. From the appearance of Loyalist and Quaker settlers in the late 18th century, through deforestation for both farm lands and the production of ships’ masts for the Royal Navy, to American policies on alcohol consumption and trade, the Sandbanks bear the marks of each of these events and more over the past 200 years.
The presentation will explore these various key events and the resulting impact on this world-famous natural wonder.
If Lilacs Could Sing
Stephen Medd
10 March 2021
Stephen Medd is a performing songwriter of historical ballads and spiritual songs inspired by the remote Canadian landscapes that he traveled as a young exploration geologist. In 1999-2000 Stephen assisted Avril Lavigne in her early development by writing 3 songs for her that were Avril's first-ever studio recordings.
His recent project entitled, If Lilacs Could Sing is a book of ballads and accompanying recordings about the fascinating historical events and people of the Greater Napanee, Kingston and Bay of Quinte region in which he lives. The opening ballad, Ripple on the Water, is a tribute to the Loyalist refugee settlers and to the First Nations in their traditional territory (the Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe). The historical compilation includes local stories from the 17th to the 21st Century including the tragic endings of two of our region's most endearing ships: the schooner Lyman Davis and the steamer Quinte.
Bush Runner
Mark Bourrie
24 March 2021
Known to some as the first European to explore the upper Mississippi, and widely as the namesake of ships and hotel chains, Pierre-Esprit Radisson is perhaps best described, writes Mark Bourrie, as “an eager hustler with no known scruples.” Kidnapped by Mohawk warriors at the age of fifteen, Radisson assimilated and was adopted by a powerful family, only to escape after less than a year. After being recaptured, he defected from a raiding party to the Dutch and crossed the Atlantic to Holland—thus beginning a lifetime of seized opportunities and frustrated ambitions.
A guest among First Nations communities, French fur traders, and royal courts; witness to London’s Great Plague and Great Fire; and unwitting agent of the Jesuits’ corporate espionage, Radisson double-crossed the English, French, Dutch, and his adoptive Mohawk family alike, found himself marooned by pirates in Spain, and lived through shipwreck. His most lasting venture as an Arctic fur trader led to the founding of the Hudson’s Bay Company.
The Remarkable History of the Legendary Red Jacket, a Canadian Sailing Icon
Rob Mazza
7 April 2021
Red Jacket represented a quantum leap in both design and construction. Her short overhangs, stripped out interior, separate keel and spade rudder, large sail plan, and attention to detail would become the hallmarks of all future Ocean Racers. However, it was her obsession with light weight combined with high strength construction elements, embodied in her use of a fully balsa cored hull (the first vessel in North America to do so), that pioneered the way, not only for racing yachts, but the whole composite industry that followed. She was the first Canadian and non-American boat to win overall title at the Southern Ocean Racing Conference.
Join Rob as he explores the Museum's most recent acquisition, bequested by Red Jacket's last owner, Peter Milligan. The Museum expects to receive the vessel in spring-summer 2021.