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Ṡome World Famous Vessels
The ships of the Seven Seas make
the two modern harbors of the
Panama Canal their ports of call
This gallant old ship battled the icy wastes of Arctic seas and tropical storms in t!te Caribbean before it came to an inglorio'lts
end on the salt mud flats of Cristobal harbor. The Roosevelt was the flagship of Admiral Peary on his voyage to the Arctic
when he discovered the North Pole. It was later converted into a tug and was used several years in towing barge loads of
lumber from the west coast through the Canal to Atlantic ports.
SAILING vessels, palatial yachts, grim tugs, the ship for an- Arctic expedition. It had been
whaling fleets, and ships on scientific expeditions
or explorations all have been a part
of the great sfream of traffic which has moved
through the Panama Canal or visited the termi­
~al ports during the quarter century since the
Interoceanic waterway was opened in 1914.
One of the famous craft which visited Canal
waters a short time before the Canal was opened
was the Polar ship Fram, on which Captain
Roald Amundsen made his Northwest Passage
survey. The Fram was en route to San
Francisco where Captain Amundsen was to join
hoped that the Fram could transit the Canal but
slides which occurred in 1913 prevented this.
The Norwegian schooner finally was dispatched
around South America.
One of the first steam-propelled vessels to
transit the waterway (before it was opened to
commercial traffic) was the Panama Canal tugboat
Reliance. Its trip was notahle because it
marked the completion of the first circumnavigation
of the South American continent.
The Reliance made one of the strangest voyages
in the history of the sea-10,SOO miles to
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