History of The Northern Star and Her Name Changes
Bonny Blue 2002 - 2007 Chesapeake, VIRGINIA
Captain Merritt Walter designed the Bonny Blue in 2002, a beauty at 65 feet long and weighing in around 90,000 pounds. The eight-cabin vessel, which slept 16 and sat as many as 30, was designed and built to resemble a 1920’s passenger and freight steamer. She spent five years sailing the Dismal Swamp Canal and Pasquotank River between Chesapeake, VA, and Elizabeth City, NC. The Bonny Blue was the last commercial vessel to sail the Dismal Swamp Canal when its passenger runs finally ceased on July 22, 2007. Walter, a Michigan native, said the Bonny Blue had been so popular that its private cabins were typically reserved before the start of the season in the spring and were booked through the fall.
Walter himself is a colorful old seaman with saltwater in his veins. He started his career in the Navy, went on to deep-sea-diving school, then became a salvage diving officer. After leaving the service, Walter was hired by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), where he served as the agency’s chief of ship construction. After 20 years of building boats for NOAA, Walter launched his own company building passenger schooners, owning as many as eight at a time. Though Walter designed and built scores of ships in his long career, the Bonny Blue was clearly a labor of love. He trimmed out her interior with wood paneling made from walnut trees cut on his farm in Kentucky.
Moonlight Lady 2007 -2012
Burlington, Vermont
In 2007, Mike Shea of Burlington, VT, bought the Bonny Blue and transported her to the shores of Lake Champlain, where he refurbished, expanded, and renamed her the Moonlight Lady.
The Moonlight Lady is a throwback to a bygone era when traveling by water was both functional and glamorous. Overnight passenger ships taking travelers to towns such as St. Albans, VT, as well as Westport and Port Kent, NY, had disappeared from Lake Champlain more than 50 years ago, when the SS Ticonderoga, a stately steamboat and casino, was taken out of commission.
In her new incarnation, the Lady had eight staterooms, plenty of deck space, a large dining room with an open kitchen, and an entertainment room.
Northern Star 2012 - 2017
Newport, Vermont
In the fall of 2012, Chris Johansen of Newport, VT, purchased the Moonlight Lady and brought her to Lake Memphremagog. With no way to transport her by water, the 112,000-pound boat was hoisted out of Lake Champlain and loaded onto a flatbed truck at the old General Electric Power Plant in Burlington. She proceeded south on Interstate 89 to White River Junction, where she then headed north on Interstate 91 to Newport, becoming the biggest boat to travel the roads of Vermont. At dawn on November 27, 2012, a crane lifted her off the truck bed and into Lake Memphremagog, her new home.
Johansen completed major renovations to the boat while at the dock that first winter, but was able to preserve all of Captain Walter’s original woodwork from the Bonny Blue. He renamed her the Northern Star and began tours in the spring of 2013.
The Northern Star offered international cruises, the first time in a decade that an American boat based in Newport had done this. In addition, brunch and dinner cruises, themed cruises, and graded school educational programs were also available. The boat sailed daily until the fall of 2017 when consecutive years of exceptionally rainy seasons, in conjunction with the fallout from the EB5 scandal, caused Johansen to decide it was time to stop cruising.
Northern Star 2017 - Present Newport, Vermont
Recognizing the importance of the Northern Star to the community, Johansen brought together a group of local citizens in an attempt to prevent the sale and potential relocation of the boat. This organization became known as Memphremagog Community Maritime (MCM). The group members met on a weekly basis to discuss the future of the Northern Star. In July of 2018, MCM obtained a non-profit designation and proceeded to make plans for their eventual purchase of the boat. MCM bought the boat in the fall of 2019 with the help of the NorthCountry Federal Credit Union Foundation, as well as various local donors.
2020 was supposed to be the inaugural season of sailing for MCM and the Northern Star, but Covid-19 changed everyone’s plans.
The group is now preparing for the tour boat’s first summer of cruises, projected for 2021.They are focusing on creating partnerships in and around the Northeast Kingdom with the intent of fostering the family-like community befitting this one of a kind area.
