Steamboats once traveled all of Ontario's navigable waterways -- the Great Lakes, the Ottawa River, the Rideau, the Kawarthas, the Muskoka Lakes -- but nowhere did they find a greater variety of employment than in the North. Here, steamboats served the lumber trade, brought settlers to their new lands, transported produce to markets, and helped to make possible the railways, the mining industry, paper mills, and tourism. They were lifelines to isolated communities and remote island villages. This fascinating account of the heyday of steamboating in the North is a timely sequel to Richard Tatley's previous books, as divers probe the depths of northern waters for wrecks and our marine heritage is once again an important topic in the popular media and at museums across the country.