Toronto's Portlands are home to many strange and beautiful things. Recently added to the industrial array is the partially deconstructed hull of a massive cargo ship.

There is something terrifying about the prospect of an enormous vehicle torn apart. Forgotten vessels such as this have seen so much of the world, and yet reach such inglorious ends. To find an item like this in Toronto is even more bizarre, and immediately reminded me of the distant shores of Alang, where over half of the world's ships go to die.

The waterway seemed interminable; the remains of the vessel seemed so surreal. How and why, Toronto?

From this view, many of the Leslie-spit legends were made clear...

I went back the other night to find the name of the ship, yet found that even that had been stripped.

Perhaps some questions are best left unanswered; walking by the ruin at night only solidified my uneasy feeling; the iron giant was now slightly turned in the ice, the mighty Canadian Miner (the ship just West), my only sense of comparison.

For me, visiting this place, this ship, was a surreal experience -- spending time on deck was a dream so convincing, that it was only upon waking that I felt the cold. Looking back, I realize how cold it really was, how scary it was, but most importantly, how beautiful it was.

(To see more photos, as well as high-res. versions of those above, you can view my Flickr slide-show below.)