CANTON -- Ted Rafuse, expert on Canadian rail history, will speak on the historic rail car ferry service across the St. Lawrence River at noon on Thursday, Nov. 17 at the St. Lawrence County Historical Association.

Brown Bag Lunches are free and open to the public: bring a lunch and enjoy a beverage and dessert provided by SLCHA.

The Prescott, Ontario-Ogdensburg, New York rail car ferry service transferred rail cars across the St. Lawrence River for more than a century. Canadian lumber and livestock and American coal and merchandise provided much of the material transferred, but for several decades the glamour transfer was the cross river shipment of raw silk and silk goods shipped to Vancouver, then transferred by the Canadian Pacific Railway across the continent to Prescott, where the cargo was transferred across the river and shipped further by rail from Ogdensburg to destinations in New York city and environs.

The ferries, at times independent of the rail companies and later under their auspices, were the unheralded servants of this distinctive international rail marine transfer service and plied the St. Lawrence River in all seasons.

For more information, call 386-8133, e-mail info@slcha.org or visit www.slcha.org.