H.L. Bastien – Canoe & Boat Builder

Henri Louis Bastien was born in 1831 at Terrebonne near Montreal, Quebec. He left his home town at the age of eighteen and made his way to Oswego, N.Y. where he became engaged in the boat-building trade. He then lived for a time in Buffalo and later in Memphis, Tennessee. He came to Hamilton, Ontario in the mid-1850’s. After an early career as a building contractor in the city, he opened his own boat works and livery on the bay-front in 1865. People in Hamilton pronounced the name "Basteen" as they still do.

For more than half a century his name was associated with the design of gasoline launches, sailing yachts, scows, St. Lawrence racing skiffs and canoes of many different kinds. H.L. Bastien also operated boat liveries in the vacation country north of Toronto, including one at the Royal Muskoka Hotel and another at the Sans Souci Hotel on Georgian Bay.

Mr. Bastien died on Februray 20, 1923 at the age of ninety-one. He was one of the most informed men on Lake Ontario in the field of canoes, canoeing and yachting, and was said to know the glory days of the old Nautilus and Leander canoe clubs as intimately as any man in the area.

In 1937, the substantial buildings of his boat works and livery at the foot of Bay Street were demolished as part of general re-development along the Hamilton waterfront.