Marc Mousseau didn’t have to fight the crowds to get a good waterfront spot to enjoy last night’s Canada Day fireworks.
Instead, he and his family comfortably enjoyed the show from his 75-year-old tugboat parked in the Roberta Bondar Transient Marina; perhaps one of the best spots in the city.
The 36-foot steel hull small-harbour tugboat, named ‘Samara’ after his granddaughter, is actually the fifth tugboat Mousseau’s owned.
He’s also had three ‘alligator tugboats’ and a 40-foot workboat tug.
“Everyone has something they collect. Some people like vintage cars or motorcycles and I like tugboats. They may not be as fast as the fancy boats but they’re cheaper on fuel,” said Mousseau, whose current tugboat can go about 6 or 7 knots and, at its very limit, might be able to push a ship the size of the MS Norgoma museum ship.
The tugboat is driven by basically three very simple controls in a manner that Mousseau said is much simpler than tugboats today.
These controls sit in the wooden wheelhouse and include a quaint looking brass throttle, a possibly original wood steering wheel, and a simple three-position shifter to go forward, neutral, and reverse.
Mousseau doesn’t know that much about the boat’s background however he said it was built in the Sault in 1941 and its last job was pushing logs up until the early 1990s when it then started being used as a recreational vehicle.
Mousseau bought Samara about 6-years-ago and has been loading it up with friends and family to watch Canada Day fireworks since.
Why did he name it after his granddaughter?
“She’s the most important thing in my life besides my boat. Now I have more grandchildren and I guess I’ll have to get more boats. Maybe they’ll be canoes though, I don’t know,” said Mousseau although he does have his eye on other tugboats out there.
Mousseau comes from a French background that came to Canada in the late 1500s.
What he loves most about Canada is the freedom we have and our multi-cultural makeup.
“Hey, it’s a great country,” said Mousseau,” “but sometimes I still curse my forefathers for coming here. Why couldn’t they move somewhere warmer like the Caribbean?”
And to a statement like that, it's likely many Saultites, although empathetic, would want to reply, “Shhh Mousseau, we’re trying to enjoy summer right now.”