On a sunny August afternoon, the mouth of the Welland Canal in Port Colborne at the shore of Lake Erie offers a picturesque lesson into the marine history of Ontario. In the waters where shipping traffic once travelled non-stop every day, a few children skinny dip off the steps of the pier; the impressive bulk and height of one of the canal’s few remaining lift bridges overlooks the fading footprint of the three earlier canals that flowed here and the stone abutments of retired bridges and locks; along West Street there are historical markers outlining the ongoing industrial history of the town straddling the now shuttered pilot’s cabin.

And from there, on the Promenade overlook, a familiar site becomes visible across the water: a red star on a white field, above the stylized seriffed letters “John’s Seafo.” Looking closer, there’s a familiar blue plank surrounded by light bulbs, with inoperable neon tubing spelling out “SEAFOOD.” It’s the old ship, alright, what’s left of it, the MS Jadran, which was anchored in the Toronto harbour at the foot of Yonge St. for 40 years, serving as Captain John’s restaurant. Before that it had spent two decades as a passenger ship in the Adriatic. Now it sits in pieces here, the recognizable upper half in pieces emerging from the earth and bush along the canal.

For a visitor from Toronto, it is a startling sight, like the sudden appearance of the beached tip of Statue of Liberty at the end of Planet of the Apes — the ruin of a familiar landmark in an unfamiliar place. What was for a couple generations an iconic fixture of Toronto’s waterfront has become, for the summer, a part of the view for Port Colborne’s residents and visitors.

“I was familiar with Captain John’s restaurant when it was moored in Toronto harbour,” says Port Colborne mayor John Maloney. “Certainly when it came down here, it gathered a lot of interest. Not just from local people, but also people were coming from quite a distance to see it,” he says, saying it served as “almost a tourist attraction” throughout the summer, and a conversation piece among local residents.

Maloney himself has visited the canal each day, watching the Jadran’s progress anchored to another, larger vessel at the edge of Marine Recycling Corporation’s marine salvage yard. “It’s being demolished rather quickly,” he says, disassembled in parts by a crew of a few dozen local labourers. What remains of the hull is still in the water, while the wheelhouse, cabin, and passenger compartments are disassembled onshore. “It’s actually sad to see these vessels that had an interesting history . . . it’s sad to see them demolished and disposed of.”

It’s not a novelty in Port Colborne, though. For more than 30 years, Marine Recycling has been operating as a recycler on the canal, a major — and growing — employer. Where once ships from all over the Great Lakes and from down the St. Lawrence moved through Port Colborne carrying freight, now they come here to die. Or to be reborn, their pieces sold off to be remade into other things.

Jordan Elliott of the Marine Recycling Corporation says he expects the Jadran to disappear entirely — for the recycling project to be complete — before the fall. At which point, it will be replaced on the canal by another ship destined for destruction and dismantling.

“When one is gone, there’s another one shortly after, it’s an ongoing operation 12 months a year,” Mayor Maloney says. “We’re sorry to see it happen, but the scrap is recycled, new boats come out, and they serve the country.” And old industrial shipping channel becomes the site of a new recycling facility, old materials become new products, old landmarks disappear, to be replaced by others. And the whole cycle is visible from the Promenade in Port Colborne, where a piece of Toronto’s own marine history slips slowly, piece by piece, into memory.