THUNDER BAY – On the shores of the Kaministiquia River, Jamie Zaroski is keeping maritime history alive one handcrafted boat at a time.
“I've kept it all 1800s. There's nothing modern on here, no lights, no batteries, nothing,” said Jamie Zaroski.
A self-taught builder with a lifelong passion for the water, Zaroski has created eight boats so far, ranging from wooden canoes to rugged steel tugs and steamboats.
His most recent creation is a fully-functional, 22-foot, all-steel steamboat named Full Steam, and it’s become his pride and joy.
“This is a steamboat that I built about a year and a half ago. It took me nine months,” he said. “I started to build it outside in the winter.”
“The only thing I didn't build is the engine. It came from Louisiana, about 50 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. Can't go much further south, and that was built in the 1800s.”
“I'm still tweaking it a bit, trying to find a perfect prop for it, so I'm always trying to just get another one mile an hour out of it, but there's no rush when you're in this boat." he said.
With a top speed of 12 miles per hour, Full Steam isn’t built for racing, but that’s part of the charm. Life slows down on the river, and Zaroski embraces that pace.
"I could stay on this all day, as long as I got food and water.”
Operating a steam-powered boat the old-fashioned way means more than just maintenance, it also means hauling fuel by hand. “I live on Victor Street, 18 kilometres one way. Maybe two wheelbarrows of wood to the marina and back,” Zaroski says. “It depends on the quality of wood, too.”
His last major project was Iron Queen, a 30-foot, steel-hulled tugboat.
“Before that, it was all wood boats and canoes and stuff,” Zaroski says. “I did build another steamboat about 10 years ago, but it was a wood hull, so I've improved on that.”
But Full Steam has a special place in his heart.
“I usually sell it and move on to a new project, but this one I really enjoy, so I think I might hang on to it.”
