The full-rigger Lake Superior ahead of a rival, possibly her sister Lake Ontario, as they run for home

Built by Robert Steele at Greenock, on the Clyde, in 1868, Lake Superior was widely regarded as a fast as well as beautiful ship. Ordered for the Canada Shipping Company, along with her very similar but not identical sister Lake Ontario, Lake Superior was registered at 1,335 tons gross (1,274 net) and measured 232 feet in length with a 36 foot beam. After a highly successful career trading to Canada out of the Clyde and Liverpool for her first owners, she was sold to J. Shepherd & Co. of London when Canada Shipping's fleet changed over to steam in the mid-1880s. Thereafter running to New Zealand, she claimed two record runs at the turn of the century, the first being 28 days from Capetown to Lyttleton (NZ) in the spring of 1899. This was followed by an equally notable 81 days from the Lizard (Cornwall) to Launceston (Tasmania) in 1901 by which time she was thirty-three years old. Sold the following year to Norwegian owners and re-registered in Drammen (Norway) under the modified name of Superior, she was still afloat and trading in 1914 but disappears from record soon afterwards, perhaps a casualty of World War 1.