Robert B. Townsend was a long-time sailor and sailing enthusiast who, after forty years on Bay Street, and following a lifetime of active community involvement, retired to the beautiful Bay of Quinte. For many years an advocate of the preservation of the marine heritage of Ontario, he compiled a database of Snider's "Schooner Days" articles.

For more than two hundred years, thousands of giant sailing ships traversed the Great Lakes carrying cargo and passengers. The memory of the romance and elegance of these beautiful ships has almost been forgotten in the search for greater efficiency and speed in our modern world.

C.H.J. Snider (1879-1971) chronicled this era in his 1,303 "Schooner Days" columns for Toronto's The Evening Telegram between 1931 and 1954. A great marine researcher and artist, Snider himself worked aboard schooners in his youth and studied first-hand the development of the Great Lakes region. Coupled with Snider's writings are those of Robert B. Townsend, who, besides introducing Snider's stories, adds some of his own.