By BILL ZUFELT

They say that every ship tells a story.

A Lakeview brewery is getting good reviews for a brew made in honour of a popular Long Branch ship named Defiance that plied the waters of Lake Ontario for 68-years as a stonehooker.

Stonehooker Brewing Company, at 866 Lakeshore Rd. E., in Lakeview, released the 7.3% alcohol content  brew for Christmas since the ship was made in Etobicoke by local craftsmen and sailed our waters for almost seven decades.

The schooner’s time on the water was more than double that of the nautical sailing ship with an average of 30-years, experts say.

This ship was built at the mouth of the Etobicoke Creek in 1845. One year after the tragic sinking of the Titanic, the Defiance succumbed to a wicked gale off the Scarborough Highlands, also known as the Bluffs, and went down in 1913. It is not known how many sailors died.

“Thanks to nearly seven decades of stone hooking ‘Dufferin shale’ from Lake Ontario aboard Etobicoke’s ‘Defiance,’ Toronto’s Foundation is as strong and vital today as it was well over a century ago,” says Bill Zufelt, Chair History and Cultural Committee Long Branch.

Zufelt says someone at Stonehooker read an article he wrote about Defiance and it inspired the brew.

Jack of all trades “ fisherman, sailor, carpenter, wharfinger and ship-owner “Boss Harris and his brothers, of Port Credit, capitalized on the Etobicoke Creek’s protective sandbar, and lagoon, extending westward toward Lake Ontario and started building ships including the Defiance.

This Etobicoke boat-builders peninsula would for almost three decades become an illustrious shipbuilding location, including many stonehookers, built by William Goldring and family, like the Betsey. 

At the time, Zufelt said the Etobicoke Creek was richly forested with red oak, maple, ash, elm, birch and spruce. A bounty of eastern pine, which was the first choice of The Royal Navy for their uniformly straightness and strength, was shaved and scaled to make perfect masts, spars and booms.

Giant red oaks were felled, axed and shaped to make iron sturdy ribs and hull planks, maple, elm were steamed to ad in the curving process to applied sections.

Blacksmiths forged and pounded on their anvils, all the necessary ships hardware, fasteners and sailing marine ware. The pungent smell of fresh pitch for waterproofing was made from melted resin pine resins mixed with charcoal, hovered over the bustling camp.

Based on the greenest of the oak planks, bags of pickling salt were packaged around crucial structural components of the ship to pre-age the woods for structural integrity.

According to the Great Lakes Marine History Registry the Defiance schooner weighed in at twenty-six gross tonnage and was the first of five Defiances to be built in the Great Lakes.

When the Defiance came into being, she was witness and service to the biggest changes to the northern shores of Lake Ontario in development, population, culture and economic prosperity to well over a half a century.

She faithfully sailed her part well until that fateful day in 1913.

The brewery is hoping area residents will treat themselves to a cold hearty Defiance toast and drink up some local history. You can obtain their beers at www.stonehooker.com or call 289-847-5000.