One of the first female sea captain in North America[1]
Title
Captain
Spouse(s)
Ray Blaisdell (m. 1944; died 1964) John Carney (m. c. 1965; her death 2009)
Myrtle "Molly" Kool (February 23, 1916 – February 25, 2009)[2][3] was a Canadian sea captain. She is recognized as being one of the first registered female sea captains or ship masters in North America.[4] She was one of the first female Master Mariners in Canada.
Kool was born in Alma, New Brunswick, the daughter of Myrtle Anderson and Paul Kool, a Dutch sailor. She grew up sailing, eventually becoming captain of Jean K, a 21-metre (69 ft) scow owned by her father.
At age 21, Kool joined the Merchant Marine School in Saint John, New Brunswick, being the only woman to ever do so. On April 19, 1939, Kool graduated and received her Master Mariner's papers from the Merchant Marine Institution in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. As a result, a line in the Canadian Shipping Act was amended to read "he or she." Her father turned the title to the scow over to her and she captained it for five years, working mainly the pulp and paper trade in the Bay of Fundy.
In 1944, after her ship caught fire,[5] Kool left life at sea to marry Ray Blaisdell of Bucksport, Maine in 1944.[6] Blaisdell died in the 1960s and she remarried, wedding John Carney of Orrington, Maine.[7] Kool eventually retired fully after losing both her legs to a vascular disease.
Kool spent her remaining years in a seniors care home in Bangor, Maine. She died from pneumonia in a hospital in Bangor, aged 93. Her ashes were scattered on the Bay of Fundy at Herring Cove, near her birthplace.[8]
A monument to her accomplishment was erected near the wharf in Alma. As of 2011[update], the home she grew up in is being rebuilt from the original remains and an exhibit is planned at the entrance of Fundy National Park.
