Radium Yellowknife

Launch of the Radium Yellowknife at Waterways Alberta.

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 southern Canada, then disassembled and shipped by rail to riverport on Lake Athabasca, where it empties into the Slave River. She was first built in Vancouver. Her reassembly was delayed as several of the railway cars carrying her components derailed. She was launched on August 18th 1948 -- late in the season, as the rivers used to freeze in late September, early October. After her reassembly, she sailed to the portage on the Slave River at Fort Smith, NWT, dragged overland across the portage to the lower river, where she could then access the Great Slave Lake and the MacKenzie River, and the Beaufort Sea.

When she was launched she was the fifteenth and largest vessel operated by the Northern Transportation Line -- also known as the "Radium Line" as many of the vessels contained the prefix "Radium" in their name. One of the fleets most important ports of call was Port Radium, on Great Bear Lake, the source of much of the Uranium used by the Manhattan Project during World War 2.

The spring thaw comes late on the Mackenzie River and her tributaries. In 1950 she arrived at Hay River on June 15th. In 1953 the Radium Yellowknife was still frozen in at Norman Wells on Great Slave Lake as late as June 8th.

In 2003 she transited the Northwest Passage, overwintering in Iqaluit, Nunavut, when the ice came early. Since then she has served on the Great Lakes.

Radium Yellowknife moored in Toronto.

specifications

tonnage	235 tonnes
length	40 metres
draft	1.6 metres
beam	8.6 metres
IMO number	5288956
power	2 x diesels 750 horsepower each
launched	1948