The vessel is older than the Titanic. It had been docked at Port McNicoll in Georgian Bay, which was once a vital stop along a Canadian Pacific Railway shipping route.

Keewatin was the centrepiece of waterfront redevelopment plans there, but after those plans fell through, the steamship was donated by longtime owner Skyline Investments Inc. to the Marine Museum of the Great Lakes in Kingston, some 350 kilometres away.

The 107-metre-long ship arrived at the museum on Oct. 26, pulled in by tugboats.

The museum secured a heritage designation for the Keewatin, and will fund about $2 million in major repairs.

Later on, Keewatin will open as a museum exhibit in a dry dock.

For nearly 60 years, the Keewatin transported passengers and freight from Port McNicoll across the Great Lakes to Thunder Bay, Ont.

The ship was decommissioned in the 1960s and purchased by a wealthy American who turned it into a floating museum on Michigan's Kalamazoo Lake.

In a written statement, the Marine Museum of the Great Lakes said it was accepting the ship as a donation and that it couldn't stay in Port McNicoll "as there is no qualified or resourced organization to care for it."

The museum's manager, Doug Cowie, has called it a "transformational" acquisition for the museum.

Cowie said unlike Port McNicoll, Kingston has five qualities that make it the right home for the Keewatin: financial resources, plenty of tourists, a dry dock, an exclusive heritage designation and decades of expertise.