The Slave River is a Canadian river that flows from the confluence of the Rivière des Rochers and Peace River in northeastern Alberta and runs into Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories. The river's name is thought to derive from the name for the Slavey group of the Dene First Nations, Deh Gah Gotʼine, in the Athabaskan languages. The Chipewyan had displaced other native people from this region.
Port Radium is a mining area on the eastern shore of Great Bear Lake, Northwest Territories, Canada. It included the settlement of Cameron Bay as well as the Eldorado and Echo Bay mines. The name Port Radium did not come into use until 1936 and at the time it was in reference to the region as a whole. The Eldorado mine site at LaBine Point adopted the name for its settlement in the 1940s and it has generally stuck.
The Radium King was built in 1937 to haul ore on the Mackenzie River, and her tributaries. This included uranium used in the US atom bombs of World War II. Later in her active career she hauled barges on Great Slave Lake.
Gilbert A. LaBine, was a Canadian prospector who, in 1930, discovered radium and uranium deposits at Port Radium, Northwest Territories. LaBine was president of Eldorado Gold Mines from its start in the late 1920s to 1947. He left the company, which had become a Crown corporation in 1944, to prospect for uranium minerals as an independent mine developer. In the 1950s he brought the Gunnar Mine to production at Uranium City, Saskatchewan.
The Eldorado Mine is a defunct mine located in Port Radium, Northwest Territories, Canada. The site, which covers 12 hectares, is located next to Echo Bay in the shore of Great Bear Lake.
Crowley, legally Crowley Maritime Corporation, is based in Jacksonville, Florida, United States. Founded in 1892, Crowley is primarily a family- and employee-owned vessel management, owner, and supply chain logistics services company, providing services globally. As of July 2016, Crowley was ranked as the 13th largest private company in Florida, employing approximately 5,300 people worldwide with revenues of $2.2 billion. It provides its services using a fleet of more than 300 vessels, consisting of RO-RO vessels, LO-LO vessels, tankers, Articulated Tug-Barges (ATBs), tugs and barges. Crowley's land-based facilities and equipment include terminals, warehouses, tank farms, and specialized vehicles.
Russel Brothers Limited was a Canadian steel boat builder, diesel engine manufacturer and steel fabricator. The company operated in Fort Frances, Ontario from 1907 to 1937 and then in Owen Sound, Ontario from 1937 to 1994. The old site was later used by Fort Frances Steel & Welding and Busch’s Auto Supply before being demolished and now parking lot for LaVerendrye General Hospital along Front Street and Armit Avenue
The Mackenzie River in Canada's Northwest Territories is a historic waterway, used for centuries by Indigenous peoples, specifically the Dene, as a travel and hunting corridor. Also known as the Deh Cho, it is part of a larger watershed that includes the Slave, Athabasca, and Peace rivers extending from northern Alberta. In the 1780s, Peter Pond, a trader with the North West Company became the first known European to visit this watershed and begin viable trade with the Athapascan-speaking Dene of these rivers. The Mackenzie River itself, the great waterway extending to the Arctic Ocean, was first put on European maps by Alexander Mackenzie in 1789, the Scottish trader who explored the river. The watershed thus became a vital part of the North American fur trade, and before the advent of the airplane or road networks, the river was the only communication link between northern trading posts and the south. Water travel increased in the late 19th century as traders, dominated primarily by the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), looked to increase water services in the Mackenzie River District.
Marine Transportation Services (MTS) formerly Northern Transportation Company Limited (NTCL) is a marine transportation company operating primarily in the Mackenzie River watershed of the Northwest Territories and northern Alberta, and the Arctic Ocean using a fleet of diesel tug boats and shallow-draft barges. NTCL filed for bankruptcy in 2016 and its assets were acquired by the Government of the Northwest Territories later that year.
Waterways is a locality within the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo in northern Alberta, Canada. It is now a neighbourhood within the Fort McMurray urban service area along the west bank of the Clearwater River, south of the river's confluence with the Athabasca River.
The Radium Queen and her sister ship the Radium King were built in Sorel, Quebec in 1937, for the Northern Transportation Company, a subsidiary of Eldorado Gold Mines. The Radium Queen was a cargo/tug ship that served on the Slave River. It made runs between Lake Athabaska and Great Slave Lake which is generally navigable. The Radium Queen towed barges from the railhead at Waterways, Alberta to a portage around the rapids. Cargo was unloaded there and transported by land, and loaded on barges on the lower river that were towed by the Radium King, and later by other tugboats, like the Radium Charles, Radium Express and Radium Yellowknife.
The Radium Express is a Russel Brothers tugboat operated by the Northern Transportation Company. The vessel was built in Owen Sound, Ontario, disassembled, and then shipped by rail to Waterways, Alberta, which was then the terminus of the North American railway grid.
Radium Mine is a painting made by Canadian artist A.Y. Jackson when he visited the mine-site of the isolated Radium mine at Port Radium, Northwest Territories, in 1938. Jackson was a friend of prospector Gilbert LaBine, then the mine manager, and flew to the site with him.
The Radium Yellowknife is a Canadian tugboat. Like other vessels built for service on the Mackenzie River, its tributaries, and Great Bear Lake and Great Slave Lake, she was first built in a shipyard in Vancouver, British Columbia, then disassembled and shipped by rail to Waterways, Alberta. There she was reassembled and launched into Clearwater River on August 18, 1948 - late in the season, as the rivers used to freeze in late September or early October. Her reassembly was delayed initially by floods in the Fraser valley in May hindering transport, and then by a derailment of several of the railway cars carrying her components. After launch, she sailed to the portage on the Slave River at Fort Smith, Northwest Territories and was dragged overland across the portage to the lower river, where she could then access the Great Slave Lake, the MacKenzie River, and the Beaufort Sea.
Canadian National Tug no. 6 was a diesel-powered tugboat owned and operated by the Canadian National Railway (CNR) company on Okanagan Lake, British Columbia. It was launched in 1948 and transferred railway barges between Penticton and Kelowna. It was retired in 1973, becoming the last of many tugboats to operate on Okanagan Lake. Tug 6 was moved to Penticton in 2007 to rest alongside the SS Naramata and SS Sicamous, two Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) steamboats, as part of the S.S. Sicamous Inland Marine Museum. The ships are currently being restored by the S.S. Sicamous Restoration Society.
The Radium Cruiser was a Russel Brothers tugboat operated on the Mackenzie River system for the "Radium Line". She was constructed in Owen Sound, Ontario, in 1939, then disassembled and shipped by rail to Waterways, Alberta. Waterways is a river port, and was then the northern terminus of the North American railway grid. Waterways is on the Clearwater River, not far upstream from where the river empties into Lake Athabasca. The waters of Lake Athabasca flow into Great Slave Lake down the Slave River, and then down the Mackenzie River to the Arctic Ocean.
The Radium Gilbert was a tugboat built for transporting supplies to, and ore from, the radium and uranium mines in Canada's Northwest Territories. Like the other tugs in the Radium Line she was steel-hulled.
Henry Christoffersen is a shallow draft pusher tug built to operate on Canada's Mackenzie River. She was launched in 1973, and was the name ship of her class. She was designed by the Robert Allan Ltd. ship architects. She was built in Esquimalt, BC at a shipyard known as Burrard Yarrows.
Marine Robin was completed for the United States Maritime Commission (USMC) by Sun Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company in 1944 for service in World War II. The ship was one of the C4 type ship variants built by the company completed as either troop transports for the War Shipping Administration (WSA) or to become Navy hospital ships. The troop transports were operated throughout the war by commercial shipping firms operating as agents for WSA.
Radium Franklin was a tugboat built in 1951, and operated by the Northern Transportation Company - popularly known as the "Radium Line", because many of their tugboats contained Radium in their name, since they were originally built to haul Uranium ore from Port Radium, on Great Bear Lake. She was retired in 1979, after spending most of her career hauling barge packed with ore, and then briefly serving as a yard tug.
