By James Heinz

In the history of the Great Lakes, the ship’s officers are the ones usually identified.  Sometimes deck hands or other crew members are mentioned.  But there is one type of crew member who is rarely mentioned, even though they are essential to the running of the ship.

Cooks.  No cook, no crew.

And this is the story of a modern day Great Lakes ship’s cook and her adventures afloat.  Her name is Catherine Schmuck and she has written a cookbook about her experiences as a ship’s cook on Canadian Great Lakes ships. I first heard of her when she was profiled in the March 2022 issue of Professional Mariner magazine.

Forty years ago 19 year old Catherine Schmuck was working in a family motel and bar in Brockville, Ontario.  A customer asked her a question that would change her life.  He asked her, “Do you want to make a lot of money and have a lot of vacation?” Catherine had grown up watching freighters pass up and down the St. Lawrence right in front of Brockville. She answered, “Yes”.  That very day she told her German immigrant parents that she was leaving home to be a ship’s cook.

Catherine thinks she got her sense of adventure from her immigrant parents, and her love of cooking from her mother who loved to cook.

She and her sister Lorraine enrolled in a nine week course in ship’s cooking.  Their schooling was cut short after a couple of weeks due to a shortage of cooks and they were assigned to different ships. Catherine’s first ship was the CSL FRONTENAC.

WMHS files show that Canada Steamship Lines FRONTENAC was launched in 1967 at Davie Shipbuilding of Lauzon, Quebec. She is a steel 25,600 ton steel bulk carrier that is 729 feet long, 75 feet wide, and draws 26 feet of water. In 2019 and 2020 she came to Milwaukee carrying salt from Goderich, Ontario.

In those days there were four people employed in a galley for a ship with 30 crew members. There were three cooks. Each cook worked an 8 hour watch and the galley was staffed 24 hours a day. Catherine started as the night cook, working the 11:30 pm to 7:30 pm watch.  She made simple meals for her watch and those crewmembers who were starting the next watch.

One of the cooks was the chief cook.  The chief cook determined the menu and ordered the food.  The ship carried three weeks’ worth of food and food was ordered every two weeks, leaving a one week reserve.  The fourth galley person was a porter who washed the dishes and served the officers in their own dining room. The chief engineer ate with the captain.

After working the night watch, Catherine moved to the day watch and began cooking more complex foods.  She also began collecting cookbooks wherever she could.  She now cooks a wide variety of foods.

Catherine learned to adapt to the special circumstances that come with being a ship’s cook. She has had to learn to plan ahead more than most cooks so that she does not run out of ingredients, since she cannot simply go to the store if she runs out.

The movement of the ship also creates challenges. The vibration of the engines and motion of the ship means that things move around a lot.  When she puts something down she cannot be sure it will stay there. Food had been known to fly out of the oven in heavy weather.

From 1981 to 1994 Catherine worked on 10 different ships and one oil rig. Her travels took her out of the Great Lakes to Canada’s eastern seaboard, including Halifax, Nova Scotia and remote Sable Island in the Atlantic.  Sable Island is a giant sandbar that is continually moving as the waves shift the sand around. Sable is known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic, since there have been 350 recorded shipwrecks on the island.

In the late 1980s Catherine was a cook aboard the PETER MISENER. The ship was headed up the Saugenay River in Quebec province.  The Saugenay is not like most rivers. It is lined with sheer rock cliffs, making it look like a Norwegian fjord. According to Catherine, the bridge crew made a navigational error.

Catherine discovered this navigational error the hard way when in the middle of serving dinner, the ship came to a sudden and abrupt stop, something ships rarely do. Alarms started ringing. She grabbed her life jacket and ran out on deck and was immediately confronted with a solid wall of rock.  The ship had run into one of the sheer rock cliffs that line the Saugenay.  Catherine recounts that the ship “limped home” after the crew pumped water into the stern to lift the damaged bow out of the water.

WMHS files reveal that Catherine’s account of the MISENER’s accident is correct. On November 6, 1988 the MISENER limped into Montreal “with her bow smashed in. Despite massive damage to the forepeak and No. 1 port tank, Captain Poste and his crew skillfully brought the vessel to safety.”

PETER MISENER was launched in 1969 by the same yard that built FRONTENAC. She was built for the Hall Corporation and was originally named OTTERCLIFFE HALL.  She was a steel 712 foot long bulk carrier that displaced 17,908 tons.  She set several cargo records, carrying over a million tons of both corn and soybeans. Her name was changed to ROYALTON and then later changed back to OTTERCLIFFE HALL and in 1988 she was renamed PETER MISENER.  In 1992 she was sold and renamed CANADIAN TRADER. In 2004 she was towed out of the Lakes on her way to China for scrapping.

Catherine states that during her first 13 years at sea sometimes “I was afraid” during stormy weather. That’s not something that cooks on land have to worry about. Land cooks don’t have to worry about going down with the restaurant.

In 1994 Catherine and her sister came ashore.  Together they opened a restaurant in a Quebec resort community.  However, Catherine returned to the sea in 2019 at the age of 57. She did this because after years of the grind of running her own business, “Going back to sea is basically a retirement gift to myself.”  She could devote her efforts to “cooking for the joy of cooking” and the satisfaction it gives her to make others happy.  “I feel it’s my job to just to do something special for their day”, referring to her crew.

Catherine now works for Canada Steamship Lines as a relief cook, filling in for other cooks.  She has served on an additional nine ships since she came back to sea.  The first ship she served on was the RT. HON. PAUL J. MARTIN.

WMHS files tell us that the RT. HON. PAUL J. MARTIN was launched in 1973 as the H. M. GRIFFITH from Collingswood Shipyard for Canadian Steamship lines. She is a steel, diesel powered self-unloader. At that time she was 730 feet long and 75 feet wide. Although she mostly hauled coal and iron ore, she set records in 1973 and 1984 for hauling over one million tons of corn each time.

In 1999 the H. M. GRIFFITH entered the Paul Weller drydock for rebuilding, which consisted of an entirely new hull and bow forward of the engine room. The rebuild consumed 6,000 tons of steel and left the ship with a tonnage of 35,600 tons, a length of 740 feet and a width of 78 feet. She was launched in 2000 and renamed RT. HON. PAUL J. MARTIN. She has a crew of 18 and 6 officers. She should not be confused with another Canadian laker named simply PAUL MARTIN, which has been scrapped.

During Catherine’s 24 year absence from the Lakes, things had changed on the Lakes.  First of all, the crew sizes were smaller.  In the past ships had a crew of 30 and 4 people to cook for them. Now many ships only have a crew of 17 and Catherine works one 12 hour shift.  Larger crews, like the RT. HON. PAUL J. MARTIN, have a crew of 20-25 and there are two cooks, both of whom work 8 hour watches. Today the ship’s officers still eat in their own dining room but they and everyone else serves themselves cafeteria style. Catherine still works 30 days on and 30 days off on tankers. Other ships have different schedules.

Another change is that the company is more safety conscious.  As noted above, ships used to sail in heavy weather that made Catherine wish they had sheltered. Nowadays ships are much more likely to anchor in sheltered water during periods of high winds and bad weather.

Crew tastes have changed too.  Today Catherine must accommodate vegetarians and crew members who do not eat pork.  She starts her cooking day with “the basics” for breakfast.  For lunch she prepares soups and a warm choice, with sandwiches and vegetarian and egg choices.  For dinner she prepares two main course choices, one new and “trendy”, and one traditional.  Catherine prepares everything from scratch, including homemade bread, because “When you make homemade bread you make everyone feel better” not just because of the taste but because of the delicious smell. She cooks a variety of foods, from burgers to Indian to Mexican to German cuisine.

Although the crew has a menu that they can choose from, Catherine does take special requests.  She doesn’t get many of those because “I know my crew.”  She pays close attention to the crew’s reaction to each dish she prepares. As one crew member was quoted in Professional Mariner as saying, “You don’t get any better cooks out here, that’s for sure. She can cook anything.”

Catherine has visited US as well as Canadian ports.  She has stopped in Marquette and Detroit, Michigan, as well as Duluth/Superior and the Soo locks. However, due to rapid ship turnaround time, she doesn’t get to spend much time ashore in any port.  With the advent of Covid, she is not allowed to get off the ship at all. However, she still loves life at sea. “It’s basically like a paid vacation for me. (I love) to look out the porthole at the ever changing view”, something land cooks don’t get to do.

Since returning to sea, Catherine has built up a substantial social media following in both Canada and the US.  Some of her fans will line the waterways whatever ship she is currently on and hold up signs saying “Welcome Cathy.”  In addition to her sister, Catherine’s parents have gotten into the act as well. Her mother used to bring donuts and mail to hand out to ships she sailed on as they passed through the Iroquois lock of the St. Lawrence Seaway.  Today freighters passing Brockville will blow their whistles in salute to Catherine’s parents.

But her greatest achievement is the cookbook she has written containing 200 of her recipes. The book is entitled “Ship to Shore Chef: Recipes and stories as I sail through my days.”   As she described the book, “It’s more than a cookbook. It is my opportunity to share my memories, passions, and experiences.” She sold out the first printing of 2000 copies and has already sold more than 500 of the second printing.  The book can be purchased through her web page: https://shiptoshorechef.com.

Photo at top of page:  FRONTENAC in the upper St. Marys River on May 27, 2007.  Photo by Craig Olson.

Other Photos:

Photo Credit:  Great Lakes Marine Collection of the Milwaukee Public Library and Wisconsin Marine Historical Society.

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James Heinz is the Wisconsin Marine Historical Society’s acquisitions director. He became interested in maritime history as a kid watching Jacques Cousteau’s adventures on TV. He was a Great Lakes wreck diver until three episodes of the bends forced him to retire from diving. He was a University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee police officer for thirty years. He regularly flies either a Cessna 152 or 172.