The most significant records in this series are the complete set of 1556 logbooks and trip reports, which provide details on the Paterson fleet and its movement between 1923 and 2001.
These logbooks offer detailed information on the extent of grain activities - from carrying thousands of bushels at the beginning of twentieth century to transporting billions by the 1990s. They provide information on each trip, each place or terminal visited, material handled and carried by vessels and all type of grain transported. They were produced by the captains of vessel and were regulated by the Canada Shipping Act for vessels registered in Canada. This data is helpful for researchers wishing to determine the scale of operations of the Paterson Company. For each trip, a Captain inscribed valuable information in the form of a log that would be later reviewed by his superiors and interpreted by the company to create charts and statistics.
Lists of information in these books might seem difficult to interpret, but they provide historians rich and precise information about the course of the trip. Captains made handwritten notes on each place visited, the hours, the quantity of material handled, and any remarks about the trip such as weather conditions, specific conditions of the crew, personnel changes, accidents, damages and costs. Captains and engineers used different terminology to name logs - examples are: "Pilot House Log Book" and "Engineer Room Log Book" (see logs in container 232, file 6).
The system of using logbooks was implemented some time ago, deriving from a very old admiralty tradition. Entries in books are signed either by the captain, the chief of mates or the chief engineer. The chief engineer's logbooks provide mainly motor and mechanical information of the vessel. Some captains recorded information (loading and discharge information) by drawing pictures to illustrate the capacity and type of grain transported from a terminal elevator to another port. Before leaving a port, the captain had to calculate the weight of each type of grain handled and put the material in a specific place in order to stabilize his vessel. The logbook in container 345 contains an example of such remarkable drawings.
Some of the logbook covers are made of leather with a drawing of the ship designed on them (see example in container 235, file 8). Others are also well-designed and can be useful sources for future exhibition: see containers: 228 file 3, 233 file 1, 234 file 3, 236 file 8, etc.
Several captains maintained draft logbooks (named "scrap log books") and official logbooks. The official one is an exact transcript of the draft one used during the travel. As regulated by the Canada Shipping Act, both books were given to executive officers of the Paterson Company in some hours after the trip (see examples in container 232, file 2 and 3). The books also may contain documentation used by captains such as letters, notices to mariners, lists of furniture (ship store), hydrographic information, compass cards, etc.
Inscriptions of Paterson's signals are often inscribed at the beginning of the books. In each log, the captain would mark or draw specific lines along with other details of the vessel. These lines were distinct to the entire Paterson fleet and each vessel; they represented sound and light signals that identified the fleet and each of the vessels. They were used by captains to ensure safe navigation (see example in container 237, file 1). The increase in size and volume of vessel traffic in the twentieth century caused the need for light signals to guide vessels through narrow and dangerous lakes and canals. These were named "Mackinaw signal", a name from an old Point Light near Michigan Lake. The logbook in container 258, file 10 contains a drawing representation of "The private berthing signals of Saguenay Terminals Limited". These types of signals were changed after the Second World War to an international standard code of identification for vessels. This new code not only used lights, but also letters, drawings and flags in addition to the technologies of radio communication.
These logbooks are significant in various ways - and will be a useful tool for researchers. Data from other collections of historical ship logbooks have already been used to reconstruct past shipping activities. However, the complete set of logbooks in the Paterson fonds makes it much more possible to study vessel movement and the utilization of a fleet on the Great Lakes. By way of contrast, logbooks in the Canada Steamship Lines collection preserved at the Marine Museum of Great Lakes at Kingston only start in the 1970s. Using these ship logs, historians will be able to reconstruct more detailed studies of material handled and traded through the commerce of grain. They can also be used to record the history of weather and climate by scientists around the world.
